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Title:      A True Story
Author:     Stephen Hudson
* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *
eBook No.:  0300821.txt
Language:   English
Date first posted:          May 2003
Date most recently updated: May 2003

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A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook

Title:      A True Story
Author:     Stephen Hudson (1868-1944) (pseudonym of Sydney Schiff)





From the edition published in
1930 by ALFRED A. KNOPF NY




To VIOLET


The material of this novel was contained in four volumes which have
appeared separately under different titles and in effect constituted
studies for the present complete work.

The author has here reconstructed and reknit the salient elements in
their final form.




CONTENTS

PART ONE

PART TWO

PART THREE

POSTSCRIPT




PART ONE

I


WHAT I like best is when papa takes me to see Mr Max in a hansom not in
the perambulator with Sissy walking I don't see why she should walk and
hold papa's hand. I can walk as far as she can. Mr Max has got a big
black moustache and a watch with music in it and there's another old
gentleman sitting in a chair by the window and his legs are covered up
and outside the window there's a little fountain with gold fish in it
and afterwards we go down some steps and out of a gate and there's grass
and I run and boys fly kites and I try to knock Sissy over and she's not
allowed to knock me over and she tells papa I do. And Mr Max comes too
and there's another littler man with a red cap on his head and he's
black and his name is Mustapha and he takes me up like a feather and
puts me on his shoulder and runs faster than I can see the trees and the
birds. And afterwards there's a pond with boats and I put my toes in the
water and papa doesn't see at first because he's lighting a cigarette
and then he pulls me away and says I'm naughty but I like it. And
there's another place where they all sit outside their doors and inside
there's a fire like in the nursery and a smell comes out like before
dinner and I pull papa's hand to look inside at the old lady with a cap
on and the boy whistling but he can't whistle as well as papa does and
he makes a face at me and so do I. And then we go on a long way and
there are more steps and there's the hansom again and when papa sees it he
holds up his stick and he jumps me up and he lets me pat its tail and he
whistles _Old Obadiah_ and when we get home Soror opens the door and
there's mamma and then Nanny comes and ties the napkin round my neck and
there's roast heef and Yorkshire pudding I don't like cut up into those
little pieces. And once papa took me to the Zoo and after we got there I
went on the elephant but I liked the bear best because he climbed up the
pole and caught the buns but mamma doesn't like where the monkeys are so
we only stayed a minute and I cried because I saw one that looked at me
and he was just going to say something when papa took me away and the
parrots squawk too loud. In the evening Mr Max comes again and Mr and
Mrs Brandeis and I like Mr Brandeis best because he doesn't give me up
when Nanny conies and goes on playing.

And there's that place called Norwood where mamma and papa go out riding
and there's a high wall and a seat I stand on to see them go by and they
wave to me and Sissy. Sissy only waves her hanky but I wave my hat and
then I throw it on the ground and I can see it from the top of the wall
and Nanny can't get it and says I'm naughty and so does Sissy and I'm
very glad and we have to go all the way round to fetch it. And I like
having milk and my Albert biscuit and going to sleep in the pram and
it's all yellow inside when Nanny shuts it up and I can hear her talking
to the other nanny and the trees make that funny noise and when I wake
up Nanny lets me walk back.




II


Miss Carroll called all those things that get in the way tassels. There
were tassels everywhere. I had to push a lot of them away from the
window to look at the tumblers. Sissy sits on the big hassock pretending
to read. She doesn't read really. Sissy never does do anything. She
can't even play with Minnie though she doesn't mind her smell like I do.
Miss Carroll was painting those texts with flowers all over them with a
very thin yellow brush. I like Miss Carroll very much. Even Sissy likes
her. But I don't like Sissy, I never shall like her, whatever Nanny
says. She pinches me when Miss Carroll isn't looking and she tells
stories and says I'm naughty when I've done nothing. I told Nanny I
wished she'd die but Nanny said I was wicked so I wish she'd go away
instead altogether, so that I could be with mamma and Miss Carroll
without her. And she's worse since we've got on these black clothes
after yesterday. We all went in the carriage to a place where I had
never been before. There were trees in front and a path and when we got
inside it was dark and there were nothing but tassels everywhere. And
mamma and papa went away behind them and took Sissy and left me and I
heard somebody grown up crying. I was frightened but Cousin Mary came
and gave me a black-currant lozenge. Then mamma came in with papa and he
said undo her stays and Cousin Mary gave her a bottle to smell with a
silver top on it and a red thing Miss Carroll says is coral in the
middle of it. I heard mamma say my poor mother, my poor mother and I
wanted to get on mamma's knee and kiss her but papa wouldn't let me, so
I got down and pulled Sissy's hair and she screamed loud on purpose. I
didn't pull it much but papa was very angry. I like being in this little
room downstairs because of the tumblers and the old man with a lot of
hats on his head. I wish he'd come now the tumblers have finished,
they've rolled up their carpet and their little boy is looking at me. I
said Miss Carroll do give me some pennies for him, please let me. And on
Sundays the muffin-man comes and rings his bell but I hate learning the
collects. They're worse than the psalms because they're longer and I
don't know what they mean. Not like "The Lord is my Shepherd, therefore
will I fear nothing. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow
of death, I fear no evil; Thy rod and Thy staff comfort me." I think
that's right. And I remember the next one. "Blessed is the man who hath
not sat in the seats of the ungodly nor stood in the way of sinners,"
but I can't remember anything after that.

I like walking in Kensington Gardens because of the leaves. They come
half-way up my legs and I walk through them and push them about to make
them rustle. And there's that funny round place where we sit, where the
old man comes with the medals on and Miss Carroll talks to him about
Sebastopol and the charge of the Light Brigade and that fat old woman
who always gives me caraway comfits. I like caraway comfits but the
seeds stick in my tooth and it hurts. And I like the smell of something
burning and the smoke going through the trees and getting lost in the
other sort of smoke all over the Round Pond, And coming home to tea in
the nursery and when Nanny pulls the fender so that I can make toast and
she puts the butter on quick and it melts. And the musical box Uncle
Fred sent me, it plays six tunes but I like playing _Fra Diavolo_ twice.
Sissy doesn't know which is which but papa says I've got a very good
ear. I wonder when I shall see Uncle Fred. I can't see what he's like
properly in that picture in papa's room and papa had my photograph taken
in my sailor suit on purpose to send him but he said Mr Ossani's going
to do a proper picture some day, a big one, like the one of Uncle
Leopold in the drawing-room.

Most of all I like Nanny to sing about Lord Lovel and how the roses grew
and grew. I know nearly all of it and the tune as

  Lord Lovel he stood at his castle gate
  A-stroking his milk-white steed,
  When up comes Lady Nancy Bell
  A-wishing her lover godspeed, speed, speed,
  A-wishing her lover godspeed.

Then it goes on a lot until poor Lord Lovel got dead and Lady Nancy died
of a broken heart and

  Out of her grave there grew a red rose
  And out of his grave a briar
  And twined themselves into a true lover's knot
  For all true loveyers to admire--mire--mire
  For all true loveyers to admire.

And I've got a book called _Reinecke Fuchs_ with lovely pictures--papa
reads me that sometimes but I don't understand much because it's in
German only parts like about Grimbard the Brock. Uncle Leopold sent it
to me and I like it better than the other book of _The House that Jack
Built._ Sissy likes that best. Sissy can't say any German and she can't
sing Lord Lovel either. She can't do anything though she's much older
than I am.

But the best book of all is _Prince Hempseed_ because he's just like I'm
going to be. I don't want to be any of the others but I do want to be
Prince Hempseed even if they drive me away into the woods but Sissy
isn't like his sister. I hope I shall have another sister by then. Miss
Carroll says I very likely shall.

On Sunday morning mamma goes in a bath-chair and papa and Nanny and me.
Sissy goes to church with Miss Carroll but I'm too little. And Mr
Brandeis comes too sometimes and they take off their hats to a lot of
ladies and gentlemen and they ask me what my name is. All my best toys
are in the ottoman. Nanny gets them out on Sunday afternoons and I play
with them while she reads _The Quiver._ The one I like best is Blondin
riding a velocipede on the tight-rope. But I love the bricks, the plain
kind. I can make a house to live in when I'm Prince Hempseed with a high
wall round so that Sissy can't come inside.




III


Uncle Leopold must be very, very old because he's papa's uncle as well
as mine. He had his breakfast when we'd finished ours and after papa
drove off to the station. He had the spare room on the ground-floor
looking on to where the high trees were with the rooks in them and the
round seat underneath. When I came in he always held his arms out wide
and I ran in between them. Then he put his arms round me and made me
stand between his legs and answer his questions. I didn't mind because I
loved Uncle Leopold but I couldn't understand very much. He wore a round
black cap and he had little bags under his eyes. His face all screwed up
when he laughed and you couldn't see his eyes at all. His face was a
funny yellow and covered all over with wrinkles. When I kissed him, I
felt the short bristles with my lips; his skin was so nice and cool and
so were his hands. He wasn't at all big and he was all bent up but you
couldn't tell, when he was sitting at the table. He always had a glass
of water and two lumps of sugar in a saucer and Johann, his servant,
stood behind his chair. He said "_Da"_ and pointed at the glass and I
dropped the two lumps of sugar into the water. Then he stirred it and
drank a little with the spoon in the glass and put his two fingers on
his waistcoat just below where the buttons were undone at the top and
said "Ah!" right down in his chest. Then I said "_Gut?"_ and he nodded
his head up and down and said _"Gut."_

After Johann gave him his coffee, he rolled up a cigarette and let me
strike a match but he made me hold it to a thick round yellow string in
the box and blow, and he lit his cigarette from it. We did that every
morning.

There was a black leather pocket-book with an elastic band round it on
the table and every morning he put his glasses on his nose and took off
the band and took out a sheet of paper with a lot of names on it. While
he smoked, he put his middle finger, the one that was so brown, on the
paper and followed the names down with it till about half-way and his
white cuff with a large round gold stud in it came down over his
knuckles. Once I asked him what the paper was about and he said
"_Geburtstage. Heute muss ich deine Tante Julia schreiben."_ When he
said "_Aufwiedersehen_ Richard," I knew it was time to go and at the
door I waved my hand to him because I knew he was watching me through
the little bags where his eyes were. When I turned round I could see his
white socks and slippers under the table but he wore high boots under
his trousers when he went out, nearly up to his knees.

Johann had been a cavalry soldier and he gave me my first riding
lessons. He walked beside my pony, pressing my knee to the saddle and my
toes inward. We went down the gravel path to the Observatory and round
it, then back the other way to the seat under the high trees where Uncle
Leopold sat with mamma and she held her sunshade over him.

Afterwards Johann took the pony to the stable and mamma went in. Uncle
Leopold held my hand and we walked very slowly to the summer-house where
the Memorial was. Out of doors, he wore a straw hat with a wide brim and
a very narrow black ribbon and he took it off when we got to the
summer-house. I knew the Memorial was to grandpapa but I couldn't read
the inscription because it was in German. Uncle Leopold read it out loud
and made me repeat some of the words. He went to the Memorial every day
and sometimes Johann pushed him in his wheel-chair.

Every evening when I and Sissy came down after tea, Uncle Leopold danced
me on his foot but papa used to stop him doing it and danced me himself
because he said it tired Uncle Leopold. But I didn't like the way papa
did it so much. Uncle Fred danced me best of all. They all sang the same
words and I know them by heart and the tune too.

  _Ueb immer treu und Redlichkeit
  Bis an dein kühles Grab
  Und weiche keinen Finger breit
  Von Gottes Wegen ab
  Tralalala lalala lalala lalala
  Lalala lalala la._

Sissy never liked being danced and she never learnt the words but
perhaps when baby gets older she will, like me. It was her first
birthday the other day and while I was standing by mamma's bed saying
good-morning, papa brought in a little box with cotton-wool in it and a
pearl in the middle because baby had got two teeth and he said some day
when they come out he's going to have them made into a pin to wear in
his tie.




IV

Mr Milosovitch nearly always came down to Craythorne on Sundays. He
arrived in the morning before luncheon and stayed to dinner. The T-cart
and "Bobby" always met the eleven-thirty train from Paddington that the
Sunday guests came by. Sometimes papa used to drive in to Cray station
and sometimes Mussell. When not more than two were expected, I was
allowed to go, if we got back from church in time. That depended upon
old Mr Hicks who changed the morning service from ten to eleven as he
felt inclined. Nanny said he did it to suit Lord Adleham whose family
pew was opposite ours but had a door in it and was shut up so you
couldn't see inside. He had two daughters. One of them looked like the
Sleeping Beauty in my story book, and I often talked about her to Nanny
after she had finished her sherry and almonds and raisins on Sundays.
When we got back from church early, the first thing I did was to ask
Mussell if papa was going to the station, hoping he wasn't. Mussell let
me drive but papa didn't. I thought it was because he liked flicking
"Bobby" with the whip just behind the collar and making him jump out of
his trot. I wanted to do that myself and I sat there watching him flick
and pull at the old grey's mouth knowing I could do it just as well as
he could. When we got to the station even papa allowed me to hold the
reins while he went to meet the train. I liked sitting by myself as if
the T-cart and "Bobby" belonged to me and having his nice hot smell
mixed up with the smell of the leather, all to myself. Generally Mr
Benda and Uncle Fred came out first. I loved Mr Benda. He had shiny
boots and a thick way of talking and he was always in a good temper.
Papa came after them with Mr Milosovitch who always wore a grey topper
and frock-coat and sat on the front seat. When Uncle Fred came down by
the same train, he and Mr Benda followed in the fly. Mamma waited for
us on the rose-path, leading to the drive and Mr Milosovitch took off
his hat and his oily black hair shone in the sun. He got down very
carefully and kissed her hand, then he held both her hands out in front
of her. He wore yellow gloves with black stripes on the backs.
Afterwards he pulled his pocket-handkerchief out of the back pocket of
his frock-coat; even in the open air I could smell the sickly scent on
it. He dusted his boots and trousers with it and offered mamma his arm
and they walked on together talking, every now and then stopping to
smell the roses.

It was a long time before I got Mr Milosovitch's name exactly right, but
his face always stuck in my head. Papa was fearfully exact about it. I
dreaded his "Richard, say how d'you do. What's the gentleman's name?"
There were people whose faces I simply couldn't remember but I
remembered Mr Milosovitch's because of his beaky nose, his black
whiskers and hair curling round his ears and his black-rimmed eyeglass
at the end of a black ribbon. He always sat next to mamma at meals, I
was on the other side of her. He had small fat white hands and wore a
lot of rings, one on his left little finger had a blue stone in it. I
once asked Uncle Fred what it was called and he said "Pish! God knows!"
Mr Milosovitch talked in some language I couldn't understand, French
probably. Now and then he leant forward and asked me something in
English. I never knew what he meant, so he turned back to mamma and said
something I knew was about me by the way he looked at me while he
stroked his whiskers. When the sweet came, I kept my eye on his plate
because he took such large helpings and he always liked the kind I liked.

Uncle Fred made faces at me whenever Mr Milosovitch said anything and
when we were safe in a corner of the billiard-room after lunch, which
was my dinner, he used to poke me in the side and say "Well Dickerl,
how's your friend Milosovitch?"

Little by little I found out that when Uncle Fred came down he pretended
not to see Mr Milosovitch at Paddington and got into another carriage.
When the coffee came in, all the gentlemen except Mr Milosovitch pulled
out silver boxes in which were tobacco and papers and rolled cigarettes
but Mr Milosovitch didn't. He had a big leather case with a crown on it
and when he opened it, there was nothing inside so papa gave him one of
his own cigars. He always did this on Sundays, so I got into the way of
watching for it. Uncle Fred got to know I watched and winked at me and
made me laugh. I had to hide my face so that mamma wouldn't notice.

Really I didn't bother much about Mr Milosovitch one way or the other
and perhaps I should have forgotten him if it hadn't been for a certain
thing happening.

As a rule on Sunday afternoons I had to go for a walk with Fräulein
Schwind. How I hated those walks and how I loathed Fräulein Schwind.
There the old beast was outside the long window in the billiard-room
walking up and down waiting for me and I had to leave the billiard-room
full of lovely blue smoke and Uncle Fred and his jokes, put down the
long cue-rest I held in case anyone wanted it and go off and be jawed at
in German.

One Sunday I don't know what happened, perhaps Fräulein Schwind was ill.
Anyhow I didn't go for a walk and I wasn't wanted in the billiard-room.
Papa had a lot of friends that day and they were playing a game with
ninepins in the middle and they kept on putting money on the edge of the
table. Papa told me to go and find mamma. Uncle Fred saw that I wasn't
pleased and took hold of my hand and walked me across the courtyard,
telling me that he would make up for it by reading the Rindelgrover
story out loud before I went to bed. Rindelgrover was a dwarf with a
short trusty sword and rode on a pig.

The drawing-room was on the other side of the house and one could get
into it out of the garden by the side door. As we went into the room,
mamma was sitting on a chair with her back towards the door but Mr
Milosovitch was kneeling down in front of her. When we got inside, Uncle
Fred suddenly stood still but I went on to mamma though I was looking at
Mr Milosovitch.  What was he doing? Then he jumped up stiff and buttoned
his coat up tight across his stomach. He stood up very straight and held
out his hands to me; I could see the blue stone on his little fat
finger. But I kept away from him close to mamma and she held me to her.
No one said anything and presently Uncle Fred went away.

When I went upstairs to tea, I couldn't help wondering what Mr.
Milosovitch was doing but I didn't say anything to Nanny.

Uncle Fred didn't read me the Rindelgrover story after all so I made up
my mind to ask him about Mr Milosovitch who, for a wonder, wasn't in the
room. I was sitting on the arm of his chair in the corner and I
whispered "I say, Uncle Fred, do tell me what Mr Milosovitch was
kneeling for?" Uncle Fred looked at papa and mamma who were talking to
Mr Benda and two of the other gentlemen. He put his hand on the other
side of my head and seemed to spit into my ear. "Sh! Sh! you're to say
nothing. He was taken very ill and had to go away."

Some time after that papa told me that I should never see poor Mr
Milosovitch again; he had suddenly died. Uncle Fred was there and
considering he winked at me I thought I might just ask him one question.
"Was it anything to do with his kneeling down?"

Uncle Fred looked at papa but he didn't say anything and just then mamma
came into the room with a beautiful yellow dress on.




V


On my seventh birthday Uncle Fred came down to Craythorne on purpose. I
can't remember exactly but I think he always had been there on my
birthdays. Papa said though it was on Thursday this time and
account-day, Uncle Fred was coming all the same but they would probably
be late. I had been waiting for him ever since six but it was past seven
when they got home. Mamma had arranged all my presents on the whatnot
table in the little room half-way up the stairs where the floor always
creaked on the landing. We called it the greenroom. The curtains and
sofas and chairs were green but it was all shiny black wood inside and
smelt of Minnie because her basket was there. I didn't much like her
really but I pretended to because of mamma, and Alexander said I must be
kind to her, she was so faithful. I think partly Alexander liked her
because her eyes were red round the edges like his as though they had
both been crying.  I'd hardly touched the presents because I wanted
Uncle Fred to show them to me properly. Papa showed me the top you put
different pieces of wire into so that when it spun round it made figures
doing all sorts of antics. But he was in such a hurry to go to the city
he could only show me three out of the whole box. I knew Uncle Fred
would like spinning it so that it would go off with a noise like the
wind makes. I waited in the hall for the sound of the wheels but I
didn't hear them because it was snowing and it was only when Alexander
ran through to open the door that I knew they'd come. Uncle Fred shook a
lot of snow off his coat on the mat and lifted me on to his shoulder and
said "_Glücklicher Geburtstag, Spitzbub!"_ I asked him to come and look
at the presents but he said he was tired and sat down in the big leather
chair in the library and pulled me on to his knee. I twisted the curly
hair behind his ears but I couldn't keep him awake. Minnie came in and I
got down and pinched her tail and she snapped at me. That woke him up
and he said "Dick, get a paper parcel out of my coat pocket." When he'd
undone it, there was a silver money-box shaped like a beehive. He put
his finger-nail under one of the bees, the top opened and out fell a lot
of coins. He shut the hive up and made me drop the coins through the
slit at the top and count them, there were ten altogether. "Ten thaler
from grandpapa in that silver beehive all the way from Austria for Dick.
The bees work hard all day getting honey, Dick must be industrious like
a bee." Then he put his fingers in the top pocket of his waistcoat and
took out a gold piece. "Drop that in too" he said "and now let's go and
look at the presents." He spun the top a lot of times and put nearly all
the wires in but I wanted him to come on and read one of the new books
called _The North Pole_ before papa and mamma came down.  It was all
about Captain Hatteras and Cyrus Field and Gideon Spillett and about
their ship which stuck in the ice, a brig with a very strong,
square-built hull.

On my birthday I was allowed to sit up at the table and have some
dessert. There was champagne with little bits of ice floating about
chinking against the side and papa held up his glass and said "_Hoch,
hoch, die Eltern"_ and mamma and Uncle Fred touched his glass with
theirs. Then Uncle Fred winked at me and said "_Prosit Spitzbub"_ and
papa told Alexander to put a little in my glass so that I could drink
some too.

Nanny put the silver beehive on the mantelpiece opposite my bed. The
fire-light made it look like a red ball and I fell asleep and dreamed of
being roasted like Cyrus Field, the engineer, talked about in the book.

The next morning while Alexander was doing the silver I told him about
the brig and he said he would make me one. He had been a sailor and he
told me about his ships and voyages. It took a long time but at last she
was finished. She had three masts and two jibs and spars and
square-sails and a mainsail and a helm. She was painted brown and was
sticky and smelt of tar and turpentine. I thought her perfect but
Alexander said she wasn't and he would make a much better one. We took
her down to the pond which was very long but not so very broad and had
willows all round. There was a spring in the middle and it was awfully
deep, ever so far over papa's head and there was thick mud at the bottom
so if you sank, you got stuck and you never came up again. It was
dreadfully dangerous. At the ends the banks were very steep and there
were a lot of rushes and frogs and when you got down by the water, no
one could see you.

That's how I dodged Fräulein Schwind. But the worst of it was that the
brig wouldn't stay straight. Alexander said she needed a keel and he
would see what he could do. Fräulein Schwind always tried to prevent my
being with Alexander but we got away behind the round-house where the
engines were and she never found out we were at the pond. But the brig
never would stand up and Alexander said we wanted a good piece of lead
only that would cost some money and he wouldn't have any before
February. I stayed awake that night thinking about the brig because the
end of the pond was all frozen exactly like the North Pole and if only
we could get the brig stuck fast in the ice properly, we could build the
hut and make a fire and explore.

As soon as everything was quiet, I got out of bed. I put a chair in
front of the fender and stepped on it with one foot. I could just reach
the money-box. I tried and tried but it wouldn't come undone till I
banged it against the leg of the bed and it flew open. All the money
rolled about on the floor and made such a noise I thought it would wake
Nanny up. So I got into bed and pretended to be asleep but nobody came
and I got out again and put all the money back except the gold piece
Uncle Fred had put inside and the hive shut up almost like before except
for being a little on one side. At breakfast papa said Minnie had woke
him up by growling in the middle of the night.

I didn't see Alexander all the morning because Fräulein Schwind never
let me out of her sight but just after dinner I saw him come out of
mamma's boudoir. When mamma took me into the green-room and asked me if
I had heard anything in the night, I said I hadn't but I was very
frightened and she said nothing else.

I didn't see Alexander all day though I looked everywhere for him. I
wanted to give him the gold piece and I was so afraid that beast
Fräulein Schwind would notice my keeping my hand on it in the pocket of
my knickers.

When papa came home, he always went to see mamma first. Afterwards he
asked Fräulein Schwind whether I'd been good or not. This time, though
she said "_Ziemlich artig"_ he didn't look pleased but took me into the
library and stood me up opposite him in the big leather arm-chair.
"Richard, did you do anything to that money-box grandpapa sent you?" I
said I hadn't and when he asked me the same question over again, I went
on saying I hadn't.

Then he sent for Nanny to take me to bed and I went to that place and
dropped the gold coin into it.

I never saw Alexander again but I saw Johnny Everest, the head
gardener's little boy on the bank of the pond pulling something along by
a string. When he saw me, he ran away and I believe it was the brig.




VI


My first term at St. Vincent's was the summer one. It was simply awful
being driven over by Mussell in the T-cart. Old Bobby jog-trotted, plop,
plop, down the curly drive between nasty thick laurels and an iron
railing. On the other side there was a field where a lot of boys were
playing cricket but I didn't know it was cricket till Mussell told me.
Lucas took my box and told me to go into the little room with a lot of
photographs of boys on the wall while he went on talking to Mussell and
patting Bobby. I didn't even see them drive away because while I was
standing at the window, Mr Beasley came in. He was so enormous I could
hardly see his face and he had a long red beard ending in a point in the
middle of his chest and he put the tips of it into his mouth while he
asked me questions I couldn't answer. His trousers were short and he
wore low shoes that were nearly as long as his beard and had very thick
soles. He pulled the bell and told Lucas to take me into the playing field.

A boy was standing close by and I went up to him and asked him what his
name was. He said "What's yours?" Afterwards he told me his name was
Ramsey and I asked him to be my friend. He laughed and stood still for a
while looking at the boys playing. Then he walked across to another
place and I walked with him and tried to take hold of his hand hut he
pulled it away. I didn't know then we were part of the game and were
fielding and he called me a little fool. I told him I thought he was
going to be my best friend but now I knew he was my bitterest enemy.

After the beginning of the term they put hurdles across part of the
field where it went into a square between high hedges and one Saturday
afternoon the boys helped to make hay. It was very hot and Lucas
unlocked the cupboard where he kept the boys' hampers and we all bought
bottles of lemonade. Paddy Houston and I made a regular little hut, like
Livingstone, out of the haycocks and after we had drunk our bottles of
lemonade we lay down in the lovely smelling hay and I told him about
when papa and mamma and I and Soror went to Bonn, only I said pater
because the first day Lopez kicked me for saying papa. Paddy didn't
believe about Soror being black, he said nobody ever saw a black footman
and he didn't believe about the storks in the marshes at Bonn nor about
the soldiers marching back from France with green wreaths on the tops of
their rifles. And when Paddy told Lopez afterwards, he didn't believe me
either and twisted my wrist. I was lying on my back and I could just see
the sky through a little hole at the top of the hut. Every now and then
a big bird flew across and then a little white cloud. I was half in a
dream but Paddy began talking to a man outside who had very thick
reddish curly hair and a brown belt with a brass buckle that shone like
anything. The sweat was pouring down his face and he was rubbing it with
a huge red pocket-handkerchief. Then he spat on his hands and rubbed
them on the handle of his rake and went away. I asked Paddy why he spat
and he told me all labourers did that and that they had bugs in their
hair. He said if I watched this man I should see him scratch his head.
So I got up and watched him and in a little while he stopped raking and
scratched his head. When he did that, I went up to him and asked him if
it was true he had bugs in his hair because I wanted to know what they
were like. But he got very angry and was going to hit me with the rake
so I ran away as fast as I could. When I told Paddy about it, he roared
with laughter and said I was the biggest idiot he had ever seen.

We had tea at long tables, the smallest boys sat at the end near the
masters. I was next to Mr Atwood. He was very strong and had beautiful
blue eyes and I liked him very much. I was just going to ask him what
bugs were when Mr Beasley came behind my chair so that his beard touched
my face and whispered in my ear I was to come to his study the next
morning after breakfast. Mr Atwood looked at me in a funny way but he
didn't say anything nor did Baby Marr who sat next to me and must have
heard. But all of a sudden I remembered that Paddy had told me Mr
Beasley always said that to a boy when he was going to give him a
swishing. I was just drinking some tea and I nearly choked. Mr Atwood
looked at me so I pretended to eat but I felt sick and he patted me on
the shoulder.

I didn't say anything to Paddy but when we went to bed I tried to
remember what I ought not to have done and I kept on waking and pulling
the sheet up because I was shivering.

I don't know how I got dressed and I wanted prayers to last for ever and
breakfast too, but they were over quicker than usual and I went and
knocked on the door of the study. It was brown inside and there was an
awful stuffy smell. Mr Beasley went to the corner of the room and took
something in his hand. I was too frightened to see what it was. Mr
Beasley said I ought to be ashamed to insult a poor labouring man and he
told me to take down my knickers and pointed to a chair and said I was
to kneel down at it. He gave me four swishes. It made an awful noise in
the air and when it hit but it didn't hurt very much and I didn't cry. I
said I was very sorry but, really, I was awfully glad because it was all
over.

I found Paddy in the playground and told him all about it and as he
wanted to see, I took him into the lavatory and showed him my stripes.
But I made him promise to tell me what bugs were.




VlI


At first I hardly knew anything about the boys but I got to know their
names at call-over. One day when Bruce kicked Baby Marr and told him he
was a nice kind of an earl I asked him what Bruce meant and he said one
couldn't help being an earl any more than Bruce could being an
honourable. He said other boys in the school were lords besides him and
Wentworth was going to be a duke but they never kicked him because he
was strong. I asked him why Lopez said I was the son of a low-born
blackguard but he didn't know any more than I did.

I didn't mind being at St. Vincent's except when Mackenzie twisted my
arm in the lavatory and Cramp hacked me behind just as I was going into
class so that it hurt all the morning. I wasn't very frightened of Mr
Beasley, less than I was of papa and I liked the cricket matches,
especially the masters' ones and Sunday evenings when Mr Beasley read
_Ungava_ aloud and we lay about on the floor and ate toffee.

The night before I got my first swishing about the bugs I thought a
great deal about God before I got to sleep. I often do when I go to bed
but especially when I'm miserable. Miss Carroll told me about Him and
about His awful majesty and how the earth trembles at His frown, but
Nanny always talked more about Jesus. She made me kneel down and say

  Gentle Jesus meek and mild
  Listen to a little child

every night and sometimes it was awfully cold. I think that was one
reason I began thinking of God when I went to bed and got warm. What I
thought about God was always that I had done something wrong and that He
was punishing me but I didn't mind it; it was like pretending to be
frightened. Then I got into a sort of dream about God and Mr Beasley and
papa and Fräulein Schwind all mixed up and they all punished me but the
only one I didn't mind being punished by was God. In the dream God looks
something like papa but more like Mr Beasley, only much bigger and
stronger. He's got a beard too and he sits on high so that I don't
hardly reach up to his knees when he makes me kneel on the footstool.

I got rather good at squash that first term. There was a boy called
Sully who was best and he began showing me. He had large glassy eyes
that stuck out. One of the masters called Mr Huliet liked him very much
and was always teasing and tickling him. Sully was awfully ticklish and
used to lie on the ground and scream with laughter till the tears ran
down. Once he tried to tickle me like Mr Huliet did him but Mr Atwood
saw him and stopped him and told him he wasn't to do it again. I wonder
what Mr Atwood would have said to Mr Huliet.

Some of the boys like Ellerby and Hames talked a lot about hunting and
shooting. I didn't know what hunting was or what they shot and they said
I was a beastly little fool when I asked them questions. Ellerby said
he'd like to be a huntsman and that all the country about St. Vincent's
was rotten and when I said it was awfully nice at Craythorne, he said it
was worse because it was nearer London and nothing but dirty brickfields
and market gardens. He asked me if we'd got any horses and I told him
about the pair and Bobby and mamma's mare Janet and my pony Tommy. But
he said he didn't count them, they weren't hunters. Then he asked me
about my pater and when I told him he went to the city every day, he
said of course he didn't hunt, he was a cad, only cads had offices. As
he said all that in front of Marr and Paddy and Mus I was ashamed and
went away. So when I got to bed that evening, I began thinking about
what I could tell them that would make them think papa wasn't a cad but
a very wonderful man. I thought and thought.

The next day I told them a long story, all about a ship papa had got
that could go under the sea like the _Nautilus_ in Jules Verne, and
brought back pearls and diamonds and rubies and sapphires and how he had
so many you couldn't count them, millions and millions. And how he'd got
an island in the Pacific Ocean where there was coral and pine-apples and
savages and an enormous lake with canoes on it and jungles and tigers
and elephants and birds of Paradise and how all the princes on the other
islands came to see him and brought him spices and all sorts of
presents. But they mustn't say anything about it because it was a
secret. Afterwards I saw them all talking together and then I saw Mus go
and speak to Ramsey major in a corner of the playground and they both
stared at me.

After supper Ramsey major came up to me and told me I was a beastly
little liar and that he'd a great mind to give me a good thrashing. I
said I wasn't a liar and if he thrashed me, I should make such a row
that Mr Beasley or Mr Atwood would hear and he'd get a swishing himself.
All he said was "You wait" but he never did anything and a day or two
afterwards Paddy asked me to tell him and Baby Marr more stories about
the island when Mus wasn't there.




VIII


I'm not sure when it was I first began thinking so much about Garnett
but it wasn't until he was moved out of Upper Second that I knew no one
mattered except him.

Hargreaves and I had been pretty chummy for two terms until our row; but
I wasn't going to stand his rot about my being a swat, just because I
got into Upper Second before he did. The only thing he knows is _Tolle
me mu mi mis si declinare domumvis_ and he keeps repeating it in a
sing-song all day long. I could have been top of Lower Second any time
without swatting but I only tried when I wanted to get nearer to Garnett.

But no sooner had I got into Upper Second than they moved him into
First. After that, I must say I did swat. I couldn't see into the First
class-room from my desk but after I was third from top, I could look
through the round windows in the doors and sometimes I could see
Garnett. Once he was quite close, standing in front of J. B. and I knew
by the book he was doing a _viva voce_ construe of Ovid. I translated my
Caesar wrong on purpose not to go up over that fool Chase and leave him
where he could see Garnett and I couldn't. Of course he wouldn't
understand about Garnett. Only I know, and Mr Atwood. Now I think about
it, he always lets Garnett hang about with him. I'm jolly glad Mr Atwood
knows and not Chator. I've seen Chator looking at him--often--and go up
to him, but I don't think he knows, really, because they don't stay
together. And, of course, Chator is captain of the Eleven and Garnett
must let him be with him sometimes.

Besides, I could easily get into First next term but it's an awful time
to wait. Only if I did once get into it, he'd have to talk to me
regularly although I'm only eleven and a quarter. But Chase says I'm a
fool to swat for that because they'll never put you into First before
you're twelve. They'd rather start Second on Xenophon. Even now Garnett
talks to me sometimes, a little bit, especially since I got into Upper
Second. Yesterday when Mr Crane put me on at "_erat enim modestus,
prudens, gravis temporibus sapienter utens, paritus belli, fortis
manu"_.  I thought that was just like Garnett but of course he isn't
clever and I suppose he can't make out how I've caught him up,
considering he's thirteen. Miss Norman told me he was the oldest but two
in the school.  But he doesn't look like it. He doesn't look nearly as
old as Bathurst or Foljambe in my class. I'm glad he doesn't. I like him
just as he is.  I wonder what he is doing now. He's not very good at
football, I don't believe he likes it any better than I do. I'm always
afraid he'll get his shins hacked by that beast Poole, who's only got
his colours because he's a heavy lout. I hate Poole.

It was when Garnett ran second in the hurdle race that I got that
feeling. I shall never get over it now. I'd do anything for
him--anything. He jumped so beautifully, trailing his leg, quite
different to Podge. I must say Podge won the race easy. But Garnett
didn't mind, he never minds anything, especially Podge. And Podge is
really a brick. I love that greeny suit of Garnett's and the way he
walks and ties his tie. I'm always trying to tie my tie like that. And
his hair always looks tidy without his doing anything to it and it meets
together in a little V at the top of his neck. And it isn't that light
kind like Paddy's, it's more like the cocoon Mortimer's silkworms make.
When his shoe-lace came undone yesterday, I'd have given anything to do
it up for him.

I wonder if there isn't something I could do for him. I must think about
it to-night. That's the best time. If only those asses in my room
wouldn't talk. They'll have old J. B. after them one of these nights and
a jolly good thing too. They stop me thinking about Garnett and first
thing I know I'm asleep and all the time is wasted.

If only I could once get a game of squash with him. I'm pretty good at
squash; better than he thinks. If he knew how good I am, he'd want to
play with me. And once that began--anything might happen. I wish Mr
Atwood could have seen me play squash yesterday. I beat Sully minor
easily and he's nearly as good as Sully major and he's the best in the
school. If Mr Atwood had seen me play, I believe he'd have told Garnett.
Mr Atwood's awfully nice like that.

I wish I knew what Garnett liked. I don't think he cares much about
games; he never seems to try. He goes so slowly at football I simply
love watching him and when he gets the ball, he dribbles so awfully
neatly; only as soon as Poole or Nugent or someone charges him, he lets
them take it. That's just what I like about him. It's the same with
everything he does. He's never in a hurry and he doesn't have rows with
anyone. If only I could find one of his books lying about and give it to
him or even his cap or something. But he never leaves his things lying
about.  I've often wanted to look in his desk and I _have_ even thought
of taking one of his books out and hiding it so that I could find it for
him. But I can't--I couldn't. What would he say if he found it out? And
perhaps I should have to tell him and then it would be all over.

Here comes that stupid ass Frisby with his beastly truss sticking out. I
suppose he's going to show me his money again--as usual.

I must think it all over again to-night. If only that cad Neale doesn't
start them all jawing so that I can't think about Garnett.




IX


That Easter holidays I got chicken-pox and they sent me down to Ramsgate
with Nanny. Thank goodness it was Nanny as I'm certain Mrs Clavis would
never have stood Fräulein Schwind. She would have been frightened of her
being so ugly and having such a croak in her voice. Mrs Clavis had such
a soft voice and she was always smiling instead of frowning like
Fräulein Schwind.

The first morning I woke up very early but though I was excited about
coming and of course I wanted to get down on the sands, the sea looked
so lovely that I didn't mind a bit stopping in bed till Nanny came, just
looking at it. It was covered with a lot of teeny tiny dimples like cups
with twinkling stars in, them; not all the same though. Those on one
side got larger and deeper and more fiery and those on the other side
got a darker colour, violet I should think. But it looked like a road
you could walk on through the sea and as I watched three little boats
with sails up all exactly alike go sailing right across it, I wondered
how they could bear to leave that twinkling part and go where it was
plain and dark.

Mrs Clavis sat on the sand close to where Nanny sat. She was all in
black with a veil flowing over her shoulders on each side and something
white across her forehead under the top part of her bonnet. She'd got
two children, a boy and a girl, but they were so little they couldn't
dig properly so I showed them. But even then they couldn't, so I dug the
whole time and sent them for the water. At the beginning I didn't look
at Mrs Clavis much and I don't know when it began, but all of a sudden I
wanted to look at her and when we came out after dinner I asked Nanny to
go to the same place, so that we could see her again. I didn't say that
was why I wanted to go there and I knew Nanny thought it was funny after
she had told me about paddling on the rocks. But Mrs Clavis wasn't there
so we went to the rocks after all but I didn't enjoy it so much as I
expected because all the time I was thinking about Mrs Clavis and
wanting to see her.

It wasn't till after tea I knew that Mrs Clavis lived upstairs above us.
We were pretty high up but she was higher. There was a wooden staircase
with oilcloth down it just outside the room where we had tea and I heard
a noise of crying and there was the little boy at the bottom and Mrs
Clavis running down to him. Then he had to be put to bed because he'd
sprained his ankle and the doctor came.

So part of the time Nanny stayed with him and Mrs Clavia took me and the
little girl down to the sea, or if it wasn't fine, to the pier to hear
the band.

And I got fonder and fonder of Mrs Clavis.

But I didn't say anything to anyone and I'm not going to. I've got
fonder of her than Garnett. I had to be with her because Nanny was with
Dan and there was no one else to go out with. And it made all the
difference going out with her. Generally I hate walks but I loved
walking with her and holding her hand and then Rose got tired and when
she told me to go on the other side and hold her hand because I was so
big and strong, though I was pleased in one way, I wasn't really. She
always made me go on the other side when we held hands and skipped. It
was quite early in the morning and we had the parade to ourselves and
she skipped so fast I could hardly keep up and Rose's feet were off the
ground most of the time. She used to stop suddenly and laugh in such a
jolly way. I never heard anyone laugh like that, one time after another.
It made me laugh too and Rose. We all stood there laughing and a butcher
boy with a basket began laughing as well. Her cheeks were red with
skipping and she was out of breath and she stooped down and kissed Rose
and then me. I didn't dare kiss her as I wanted to. I wanted to put my
arm round her neck and kiss her six or ten times. I pretended even that
I didn't want to be kissed at all but I think she knew I did because she
looked at me and then kissed me again. Some of her hair had fallen down
by the side of her ear. It was light, something like mine but much
prettier and curly, not straight like mine.

When we got back, she told Nanny I was the best boy she had ever seen,
she had a good mind to keep me altogether to give an example to Dan
because she didn't think Dan would ever be so good as I was. I think
Nanny was very surprised so would Mrs Clavis have been if she knew what
Fräulein Schwind and papa think about me and what I know myself. But how
I wish she could keep me. Of course I was good with her. I wouldn't have
minded what she wanted me to do. I'm awfully fond of Nanny too but it's
quite different. I don't want to do what she tells me, and I don't care
much if she isn't pleased or whether I see her or not. I'm only sorry
when I say good-bye to her when I go back to school. It's more like
mamma but I'm so little with her and then it's not quite the same. When
I go into the room where Mrs Clavis's bed is with Dan's crib on one side
and Rose's on the other, I'd give anything to be Dan so that I could be
there all the time even when she undresses and goes to bed and gets up.
Once I pretended to be looking for her glove under the bed so that I
could put my face on the sheet. And when we say good-night I only want
to go to bed so that I can think of her like I used to once about
Garnett. But Garnett was different altogether though I'm fond of him
still. Mrs Clavis is much more like a fairy than any of the fairies in
the books and yet I don't want her to be one. I want to touch her and
kiss her and know she won't escape. If only I could stay for ever with
Mrs Clavis. What shall I do the day after to-morrow when we go away?




X


When you went into the billiard-room at Craythorne you had to go through
a little hall with a fireplace in it. There was another door besides
into the lavatory where I often used to hide from Fräulein Schwind. She
never dared go into it because papa always went there. So did the other
gentlemen. But though they only came on Saturdays and Sundays, Fräulein
Schwind was frightened of that place because she knew men had been in
there and used the things. Over the mantelpiece in that little hall,
there was a picture I liked looking at. It was two students with leather
jackets on and their necks muffled up fighting a duel with swords. Each
fighter had another student behind backing him up. All round the room
there were other students with different-coloured caps on sitting round
and drinking beer and all their names were written underneath and some
bars of music with Latin words that I can't quite remember though I know
exactly what they mean

  _Gaudeamus igitur, juvenes dum sumus_
  _Post jucundum juventutis, post_ something _senectutis_
  _Nos habebit humus._

Papa told me all these students were at Heidelberg when he was there and
Uncle Fred had a duel with one of them. I asked him to tell me more but
he wouldn't and Uncle Fred wouldn't either for a long time. Then at last
one day he said that those in the picture were corps students and so
proud they wouldn't fight with anyone not in a corps. One of them
insulted him and refused to fight until he smacked his face in front of
all his friends in the Schloss-Garten. Uncle Fred said he nearly cut the
other chap's nose off.  So of course I was glad when we all went to
Heidelberg the summer holidays after my last term at St. Vincent's. But
I didn't like it because first of all papa got a German tutor called
Kölle who couldn't talk a word of English. We stopped at the Schloss
hotel, right up above the Castle and you could see the Neckar and the
rafts floating down ever so far below. But the current was too swift to
row properly and except for the swimming bath which wasn't bad we did
nothing but walk and I hated that. Then the Aunts came. I liked them and
they were awfully nice but they wanted to pet me and treat me like a
baby and they did nothing but talk German from morning till night. I
know mamma didn't like it either. Old Kölle was frightened to death of
mamma. He nearly bowed down to the ground whenever he saw her.

It was Heidelberg more than anything that put me against German. I had
to learn a beastly poem called _Der Taucher_ about "_bis zum Himmel
spritzelt das dampfende Gicht"_ to say by heart and that made me hate
German more than ever.

I was always frightened of papa but while I was at Heidelberg I began
hating him. He was always in a rage about something or other and he kept
on making me do things I didn't want to do and the more I hated papa the
more I loved mamma. She was quite different but I hardly saw her or the
little ones either. They were with old Nanny. One good thing, Sissy was
with Fräulein Schwind, thank goodness.

What I couldn't make out was why if I was English, papa wanted to make
me into a German. At St. Vincent's I always used to stick up for Germany
against France but I shan't any more and when I get older I'll take
jolly good care not to _schwätzen_ any more in German.




XI


Up to the last I was in an awful funk that papa would take me down to
Clive. I knew that meant a lot of pie-jaw in the train, very likely in
front of other boys. But, thank goodness, he was too busy in the city
and mamma took me. It was always dreadful saying good-bye to her when I
went back to St. Vincent's but it was worse going to this new place but
at all events I should have her a little longer. Mamma had Archer in the
_coupé_ brougham to drive to the station. I hoped she would have driven
the cobs there in her phaeton so that some of the boys might see us but
Archer was almost as good, he's a bright chestnut and steps like one
o'clock. There was a carriage reserved for mamma and the guard showed us
to it but as we came up there was a lady with grey hair and a very
pretty face standing at the door talking to a very tall boy. I thought
he was a man until mamma asked the lady if she would take a seat in our
carriage and she said she had only come to see her son off to Clive.
Mamma said it was my first term and the lady said her son could tell me
all about everything going down if mamma would like him to come with us.
She said her name was Lady Rendlesham and this was her son Geoffrey
Bligh. Then mamma got into the carriage but Bligh stopped outside till
the last minute and said "Good-bye, darling mother" and kissed her just
as the train started.

I began calling mamma mother to myself all the way down in the train.
Mother talked to him and asked him a lot of questions but he didn't seem
to mind. He said he was in a college dormitory and this was his last
term and that he was going to Sandhurst. He said Thornhill's was the
quietest house but not good at games although Cunliffe, the last captain
of the Eleven had been there. He was captain of the Fifteen himself. He
looked at me a good deal while he said all this in a very nice sort of
way and told mother he would look out for me, but he never did anything
afterwards except say "How are you getting on, Nipper?" as he went by.
Mother went on talking to him all the way and he seemed to like her
awfully. She said she hoped his mother and he would come and see her.

I liked Mr Thornhill at once and Mrs Thornhill was quite pretty. When
mother went away after tea in the fly that brought us, I said "Good-bye,
darling, darling mother" in her ear, though I'd never called her mother
before.

Mr Thornhill took me into a large room where there were two big boys and
a piano and left me there. As soon as he went out, they grinned at each
other and one of them pointed at the door and said "Hook it." I went up
a staircase covered with bags and parcels and bats to a landing where
there were no end of boxes with boys sitting on the top of them. Some of
them were whistling; they were nearly all bigger than me. Those who
weren't whistling were hammering their heels against the boxes making an
awful row. They all stared at me as I came up but they didn't say
anything, only went on whistling and hammering. At the end of the
landing was the dormitory and the second door on the left had my name on
it. There was a boy about my size sitting on top of two boxes in front
of it. I stood a minute and he said "New boy?" I said "Yes." He said
"So'm I. Kirk. What's yours?" I said "Kurt." He said "That's funny!" I
said "Yes, awfully." Then we got to be rather friends and I began to
feel jollier. He didn't know anything more than I did but he had the
cubicle, as they call it, next to mine at the end. Afterwards he hung up
a lot of pictures of race-horses and two foxes' brushes as well as a
hunting-crop and spurs, in his cubicle. The cubicle on the other side of
mine belonged to Pearson. I got to know him that evening at supper in
the room where the piano was. He told me the two big boys I'd seen
before were Green and Ferguson and they were in the Fifth and that Green
played the piano awfully well and sang songs. Pearson was Scotch and
much older than me, two years at least and very broad and thick-set with
light yellow hair but he was only one form above. He said he'd let me
come with him sometimes to get plants and he'd show me some lovely woods
and streams. I began liking being there then especially when Ashly who
was head of the house came into my cubicle and asked if I was all right.
He was more like a master, very tall, with spectacles and very sloping
shoulders but awfully nice.

After prayers and breakfast the next morning; I didn't know where to go
or what to do, nor did Kirk. Nobody told us anything and we didn't like
to ask for fear of looking like fools. There didn't seem to be any other
new boys at Thornhill's so he and I followed the other boys along a road
till we got to a big gate. We went through that into the quad with a lot
of doors round it and boys rushing in and slamming them. At last I saw
one with Upper Middle Two on it and went in. Kirk was in Lower Middle so
I didn't know where he went.

The master of the form was Mr Parnell. Hie was the most awful man I ever
saw in my life. He had on a black gown and a black four-cornered cap
with a tassel and he had a red beard, not like the pater's but all
straggly and untidy and enormous teeth of different colours but most of
them black. When I got in, all the other boys were there and he was
calling over their names. He made me sit down at the bottom of the form.
We didn't do much that morning because Parnell was serving out books
most of the time but he heard us construe a piece of Caesar each. Most
of them did it awfully badly especially the fourth boy. He was far the
biggest of all and very fat with little eyes like a pig and black hair
that stuck up straight and pimples on his face. He mumbled and muttered
so that one could hardly hear but Parnell didn't seem to be listening
and went on to the next boy. When it came to my turn, he gave me a place
I'd done before at St. Vincent's, so I didn't make any mistakes
scarcely. Parnell hardly looked at me. All he said was "Go up to
fourth." That put me next above that fat boy and the first thing he did
was to pinch my leg so that I couldn't help squealing a bit and when I
did that he scowled at me sideways behind his book and hacked me with
his heel on the shin. As soon as the form was over Parnell went out of
the room and the boys began going out too. I had my arms full of books
and had just got to the door when Cox, that was his name, pulled me back
by the collar and knocked all my books out of my hands and kicked them
about. Then he got me into a corner and kicked me. He said "I'll teach
you to go up above me, you little snot," and gave me such a whack in the
stomach with his fist that I doubled up.

If it hadn't been for Cox I shouldn't have half minded my first term at
Clive. There was no bullying in the house at all and Mr Thornhill was
awfully nice. He was keen on astronomy and had a telescope in the garden
and invited some of the boys to come and look at Mars and Venus and
Saturn with the rings round it. Some of them laughed and joked about it
but I liked it because of astronomy and what he told me about sound and
light travelling and the distances between us and the planets and all
that and partly because he had an awfully pretty daughter called Ella
about my age who came into the drawing-room afterwards with Mrs
Thornhill while we had cakes and fruit. One afternoon when no one was
looking I went round to the back of the house and looked through the
fence between their garden and our part and saw Ella playing with a
little girl and we took hold of each other's hands through the fence but
we didn't say anything because the lace on her sleeve got caught and all
the time was taken up getting her hand back again without scratching it.

None of the boys in the house were in my form so they didn't know what a
brute Cox was and of course I didn't talk about it, except to Kirk and
he said I just had to grin and bear it. I thought Kirk was rather a fool
but perhaps he was right about that. There was nobody in the house I
liked as much as Garnett at St. Vincent's. There was no regular fagging
like at Eton but I sort of half fagged for Ashly, fetching him grub and
boiling water for his tea. He was very decent too and lent me books but
I got the best ones out of the house library. I used to lie on my bed
during recreation reading Scott and Bulwer and Dickens. I liked Bulwer
best and _Gulliver's Travels_ and _Don Quixote._

It was the Easter term and we were supposed to play footer but I dodged
it whenever I could through my toothache because it often made my face
swell. It wasn't the game I minded but Cox and Rankin were just as bad
at games as they were at work and played with the lower school.
Generally I had the luck to be drawn in a game with one or the other and
when there was a scrum they made the small boys go in first heads down
and they stopped on the outside and kicked them. Ashly, who was a
monitor, told me to go to old Dr Marsham but I knew he'd yank out my
teeth and I'd found out that if I pulled my blanket partly over my head,
the heat almost took the pain away and reading did the rest. Green made
me sing the treble parts in _Patience_ and got me into the choir so I
could get off rugger for choir practice too as well as for my piano
lessons. What I liked about being in the choir was that one could see
everybody in chapel, the masters, the visitors, the monitors and all the
boys nearly. There were two boys who always sat together in the front
half-way down who were different to anyone else. They wore
patent-leather boots and very tight trousers. One whose name was Darnley
was awfully ugly, the other called Kent was awfully good-looking. I
never saw one without the other. Kirk told me they were great sportsmen
and rode awfully well and that Porter in whose house they were, let them
ride his horses. One afternoon Pearson took me a long walk into the
woods beyond Crowhill. He was looking for some special plant in the
thickest parts when all of a sudden we saw Darnley and Kent. They were
lying on their stomachs with their arms down holes and Kent held up a
little animal with a long body called a ferret and smelt his mouth.
Pearson said they were hunting rabbits and presently Darnley pulled one
out of his hole with another ferret hanging on to him. Another time I
was out with Pearson we saw two other boys called Crothers and Dyke
lying on the ground too. I saw them first and wanted to go and see them
ferret.  But they were lying on their backs and as soon as they saw me
they got up and went away. When Pearson came up he told me they weren't
ferreting and that they were beasts who ought to be sacked. I asked him
why and he told me to shut up and mind my own business. Long before the
end of the term Pearson's room was full of plants in little baskets and
pots. He gave me some and tried to teach me to grow them but I never
could, mine always died. He said I should never be a gardener and I
don't think so either.




XlI


I never shall like Ennismore Gardens. The middle part, where the hall
is, is dark, and I hate having to take my boots off and put on pumps and
wash my hands whenever I come in. And they've stuck the little ones
right up at the top of the house so I have to climb all those flights of
stairs to see Ada and baby. I don't like Miss Durham much better than
Fräulein Schwind. I'm jolly glad I don't have much to do with her but
I'm sorry for Ada. As for Sissy she always sucks up to everyone so
she'll be all right. It's a good thing having Lillybridge to go to and
the pony to ride but those Seiliger boys aren't much good and the Row's
a rotten place to ride in, really. The Knightsbridge school's better
fun especially when pater tries to ride Tommy over a jump and comes a
cropper like he did last time. Mother rides beautifully and I love
riding with her. She never moves from the saddle when she canters and
she holds Janet when she pulls, as easy as anything. I like Mrs Mathers
awfully though her teeth do stick out and she rides well too with that
one rein on a curb bit but she ought to have a martingale on it. Mrs
Furzell rides better in a way. Bernard Selliger says she ought to,
considering she was in a circus, his mother said so.

I wonder if that's why her face is always so white. Uncle Fred seems to
like her but I know he likes Mrs Alhusen better because he was looking
at her all the time he was talking to Mrs Furzell when I came in for
dessert. I sat down near him and the first thing he did was to make me
pass the ginger to Mrs Alhusen just as I was going to have a piece. Mr
Alhusen's ripping. It was beastly of pater making me give him back that
sov. he gave me. He winked and said "stick it in the other pocket," but
it fell under the table and when that fool James went and brought it in
on a tray to the billiard-room, he told him to keep it. Pater never
gives me more than ten bob himself and makes an awful fuss about that. I
don't like Mr Hawke although he plays polo and hunts. He's got such a
rotten way of chaffing me as if I was an idiot and he's cheeky to Uncle
Fred. And when Mrs Alhusen made me sit beside her on the sofa and asked
me if I'd like to give her a kiss he poked his cue into Uncle Fred's
back and nodded his head at her. Mrs Alhusen smells of a delicious
scent, I was sitting between her and Mrs Furzell and Mrs Furzell said
clove carnation was a dangerous scent, if anybody got any on them they
couldn't get rid of it for hours and that beastly Mr Hawke roared as
though he'd burst. But mother is much more lovely than Mrs Alhusen or
Mrs Furzell and after her Lady Anderson. I love Lady Anderson, I always
did. I like Sir Hector rather but not so much as her. I hated the
sing-song way he read the prayers when I went to stay with them at
Osterley but he plays tennis jolly well and I learnt how to do that cut
from him. Now we've left Craythorne I don't suppose I shall be allowed
to go to Osterley but they've got a house in London too and I hope Lady
Anderson will invite me. I like Dick Anderson though he's so much
younger than me.

Now Nanny's housekeeper and Florrie her sister is nurse and Keeling is
butler; he's awfully fat and I like him. He told me all about Lord
Shrewsbury's country house being burnt down and about Lord Randolph
Churchill lying in bed and reading French novels and swearing when he's
disturbed. He can imitate all sorts of instruments even bagpipes and he
said John Brown, Queen Victoria's man, drinks half-a-bottle of whisky
every night and sleeps with it under his pillow for fear the Queen
should find it. Keeling's awfully frightened of Nanny; mother makes me
call her Mrs Clifford now she's housekeeper. Whenever she comes along
when he's talking to me he scuttles off. I go in when he's cleaning the
plate with a green apron on and help him. He says he's going to marry
Florrie but I mustn't say anything and he loves her more than anything
in the world.

One good thing is that pater comes back so late I hardly see him as
they're always going out or there are people to dinner but he makes me
go into his dressing-room while he sticks his head in a great round
basin and bubbles and gargles Pierre and water. Then while he dresses,
he worries me about how much of my holiday task I've done. I'm supposed
to do two hours' work with Miss Durham and go for walks with her and
Sissy but mother generally takes me out driving or I ride or go to
Lilly-bridge and play fives and Badminton with the Seiliger boys. Pater
says if the holidays weren't so short he'd have a tutor because I'm too
old for a governess. I told him I didn't mind if it wasn't a German one
and he could play games. He said life wasn't games, it was work and how
did I propose to earn my living, he had to. I don't know what he does in
the city but it can't be very difficult. Keeling says he's got thousands
and thousands a year but I mustn't tell anyone he said so.

One evening papa went to his Lodge dinner and mother took me to the
theatre with Mr Hawke to see Henry Irving and Ellen Terry in _Romeo and
Juliet._ It was awfully sad when they both died, I cried and so did
mother but Mr Hawke said afterwards it was quite time that old fool
Romeo did die. We went to have supper afterwards at a place called The
Bristol and papa came in. He was in an awful temper the whole evening
and said it was much too late for me to be up and if I went to
the theatre I ought to go in the afternoon with Miss Durham. That's
just like him.




XlII


I didn't especially like Meyrick. Of course he was an awfully good bat
and they had to have him in the Eleven although he was so fearfully
stupid that he couldn't get into the upper school. Everything I did
seemed to go wrong that term. I know when it started. I was about the
middle of the form. I didn't see much difference between Upper Middle
One and Upper Middle Two except that the boys were older and thank
heaven Cox wasn't there. We all had to do different bits of Latin prose
and Meyrick asked me to take his to Thornhill's and let him have it
before the form so that he could get to the nets because there was a
match on Saturday. He said I should have to swear I didn't do it if
Penley asked. What I couldn't make out was why the others all turned
round on me; even now I can't understand. Penley gave me a caning as
well as Meyrick and if he got stopped playing in the match, I got two
hundred lines. Of course Gutekind and his beetles made it worse but how
was I to know that? It was only my second term and there I was in Upper
Middle One without a single boy of my age to tell anything to and no one
in the house either unless you count Kirk who hasn't got out of Lower
Middle Two yet. It was the pater's fault I had German lessons, goodness
knows I didn't want to sit in that stuffy room full of books, alone with
the old blighter. And a lot of chaps started hunting beetles besides me.
I didn't know I was his favourite and I didn't want his rotten prize
either. I knew something was up when Pearson suddenly turned funny and
said he didn't want me when I said I'd like to go to Cold Ash with him.
Of course that was through the new house monitor Capel giving me ices in
his room. When Green took it up I might as well have been sent to
Coventry at once. And I had done simply nothing at all. But the worst of
all was the row about Caldwell at the sanatorium; it was a good thing
the matron came in. Beastly as it was, I should at least have thought
that his nearly getting sacked through me would have shown them I didn't
want to suck up to the Sixth and the Eleven. Anything, even Cox and his
bullying was better than being treated as though I was a reptile by all
except a few big boys I hated the sight of. Then came poor little
Radley's funeral and Cator moving away so as not to stand by me. Radley
had his tonsils painted by old Marsham when I did before we were both
sent to the sanatorium but I never saw him there because he was in a
room by himself with a nurse. His mother and sister looked awfully
miserable and when the school band played the Dead March in _Saul_ they
burst out crying. I ought to have told Mr Littlejohn, I always liked him
the best of all the masters and I very nearly did tell him when he found
me blubbing at the back of the gym. Then came speech day and I was too
miserable to put flowers in my room like everybody else and mother and
Captain Forrest came down. It first came into my head when she asked me
what was the matter after I left half the strawberries and cream on my
plate. I think I should have started blubbing then if Captain Forrest
hadn't been there. I shall remember that room at the Clive Arms all my
life with all the people sitting at the tables. Of course they thought I
was all right because of Taylor and Capel both being there with their
people and speaking to me. But Captain Forrest ought to have known that
the Sixth aren't any good if the Fifth are down on you as well as all
the Middle.  But he was Eton and perhaps it's different there. I know if
I got into Fifth next term which I could, it would be as bad as Upper
Middle One, perhaps worse and I couldn't go on like that.

I wanted to kiss mother over and over again before she went but I never
got a chance and I felt as if I was choking when Captain Forrest helped
her into the train and gave me a sov. She had given me two after lunch
and I didn't want his. I wanted to see her and he stood in front of the
window and joked about standing there to keep the people out all the
time I was thinking my heart would break in two and wishing I'd had an
iron band round it like Faithful John. As soon as the train had gone I
went down the lane that leads to Wrecclesham where I knew there was
another station and as I walked I couldn't help crying.

Presently a high dog-cart came along with a groom in it and he let me
get up. He was an awfully jolly chap something like Frank but not so
smart. I told him all about our horses and old Taylor and Frank and we
got quite chummy. He said it wasn't any use going to Wrecclesham as
there wouldn't be a train for two hours but he was passing Spitall
Junction and I'd get an up-train in half-an-hour. By the way he looked
at me I knew he was wondering what I was up to, so I told him the truth
straight out as I knew I could trust him. "Bunked it, 'ave you?" was all
he said. While I was in the dog-cart with that spanking bay horse with a
hog-mane and his short brush-tail almost over the dash-board trotting on
in that smooth way Archer did hardly touching the ground, Clive and
everything went clean out of my head. All I wanted was just to have my
hand on the reins a minute and feel his mouth, but I didn't like to ask
the groom. But we were at Spitall Junction in no time and I had to say
good-bye to them. I told that chap he was a brick and I hoped I'd see
him again some day and asked him to take the pound Captain Forrest gave
me but he wouldn't and gave me a wink and drove off.

I'd never taken a ticket before that and wasn't sure what to say but a
fat red-faced man said "One Waterloo" and I said the same and when the
train came along I got into the same carriage as he did. There were a
lot of people in it. I sat between an old woman with a basket in her lap
and the fat man. They nearly squashed me and one stank of onions but I
got used to it. I thought they might be surprised at my being there but
nobody took any notice.

When we got to Waterloo it was quite light and I hadn't made up my mind
what to do. I wanted it to be dark so that I couldn't be seen. What I
was afraid of was the pater seeing me. I didn't know my way about
anywhere. When I got out of the station I saw "Waterloo Swimming Baths"
stuck up so I went in and had a bathe. After that I walked into a park
and lay down on the grass under some trees. But when it was dark I got
into a hansom and told the man to drive me to Lowndes Square because
Uncle Fred lived there with Uncle Theo and I made up my mind to tell him
everything. A maid I'd never seen before came to the door and said that
Uncle Theo was in Paris and Uncle Fred was out to dinner. Although I
didn't think Uncle Fred would be very hard on me, I didn't like to go in
and wait. It might be a long time and I should have had to be all by
myself and think about everything. So I told the maid it didn't matter
and I would go back again, I didn't say where. But I walked up and down
in front of the house instead. I thought it would be easier to go up to
Uncle Fred outside and say "Here I am" or something. I didn't know what
to do really and I began to get awfully miserable. It got darker and
darker. Fewer and fewer people passed. It was raining a little. A
soldier passed by with a woman. I watched them walking along the shiny
pavement until they'd got as far as the third lamp-post. They stopped
there and seemed to melt into one.

I sat down once or twice on the bottom step of a house but I looked out
for the policeman and when I saw him I walked on. The longer I waited,
the worse everything seemed and the more afraid I got, even of Uncle
Fred. But I couldn't stay out all night in the rain. Where was I to go
to? Several broughams and hansoms drove up and people got out of them.
Each time my heart gave a jump because I thought it might be Uncle Fred.
At last I got so tired I could hardly stand up and when a hansom drove
up to the very next door and instead of Uncle Fred a lady and gentleman
got out, I jumped in. I didn't know where to tell him to go to, but, as
I knew the name, I said Piccadilly Circus so that I could think where
else while I was driving. But when he stopped in a place where there
were a lot of lamps alight and asked me through the trap-door where to,
I hadn't thought of anything.  While I was wondering what to do, a lady
with a lovely dress and a lot of beautiful diamonds on stopped and
looked at me. I wondered if she was a friend of mamma's, mother's, and
when she said "Won't you take me with you, my little dear?" I was
awfully surprised. But the cabby was still looking down through the hole
at the top and told me not to take any notice of her. Then he said
something very rude to her and she looked at me so sadly that I was
awfully sorry that the cabby was so beastly to her. Besides I should
have loved her to come with me in the cab as I felt so lonely and she
looked awfully nice. The cabby got down and came to the side to talk to
me. He was an old chap with grey mutton-chop whiskers. I said perhaps
that lady would have taken me home with her and I wanted to go and sleep
somewhere, he asked me why I didn't go home and I said my home was in
Worcestershire and that I'd taken the wrong train going to school and
had got to London by mistake. He said I must sleep somewhere. I'd better
come home with him and I said I would. When we got there it was a sort
of shop where they sold shrimps and periwinkles. A fat old woman with a
red shawl on came outside and the old cabby and she talked to each
other. She told me to get out and he was just driving away when I said I
hadn't paid him. He said that would do to-morrow and his wife, I suppose
it was, wanted me to have something to eat but I was too tired and the
smell of fish was awful. So she took me into a little room at the back
up a staircase and made a bed and gave me a clean nightshirt she said
belonged to her son.

In the morning I woke up with a start. A big boy about seventeen was in
the room and I sat up and looked at him. He was in his vest with his
braces hanging down and was doing his hair. It was all plastered down
except one bit in front that he was making into a sort of curl and he
plastered that down too and put a cap over it with a strap under the
chin and then I saw he was a soldier. His trousers were very tight with
a broad yellow stripe at the side and he'd got on spurs so I knew he was
a hussar. He saw me in the broken bit of glass he was looking into and
turned round and said "Hulloa!" I said "Hulloa!" too but I was thinking,
supposing he could get me into his regiment! I'd seen boys just as young
as I was in the barracks at Hounslow when mother drove over from
Craythorne to tea with Colonel Taggart or for polo matches and at
Kneller Hall where the soldiers' bands played.

I jumped out of bed and asked him where I could wash and he jerked his
head at the door. There was a stable-yard outside and the cabby who
brought me was grooming his horse opposite. The sun was shining in his
eyes so that he had to put up his hand to see me and I could see all the
dust off the horse floating about in a beam across his back and all at
once I began to feel awfully happy. It reminded me of something, I
didn't know what, but it had to do with a certain part of the garden,
the scent of the flowers and the bees humming at Craythorne, and with
Uncle Leopold and with lying on the grass on a fine day at St.
Vincent's. But the feeling went away as quick as it came. There was a
tap and a bucket and a big piece of soap and a cloth so I had a good
wash and got dressed.

Then we had breakfast in a little room behind the shop, haddock and the
strongest tea I ever drank and watercress. Jim, that was the big boy's
name, never spoke a word but he did eat a lot. It must have been pretty
early because the milk-girl came in the middle and the old woman came in
with a can full lovely and fresh. I didn't dare say anything to Jim
about going with him when he got up with his mouth full and said he must
be off. He gave his mother a smacking kiss on the cheek and I saw the
butter mark. He said "Bye, dad" to the cabby and went out buckling up
his belt. The nice old woman asked me what I was going to do next and I
said I would go to Waterloo and take the train to Clive College. She
said "Dad will drive you there" and so in a few minutes, off we went but
first I gave her one of my sovereigns. She said it was far too much but
I showed her I had a whole one left and a lot of silver and told her she
must keep it and I gave her a kiss but not on the same cheek as Jim.
When we got to the station the old cabby asked me if I was sure I was
all right and then he drove off and I was all alone again. What was I to
do next? I couldn't go back to Olive now, never again. I wasn't sorry
I'd run away but I began wondering if it was as bad there as I thought.
I was standing beside the place where you take tickets and I heard an
old lady say "Third single Ryde, please" and put down a sovereign. So I
did the same and got quite a lot of change. I ran on and caught her up
and got into the same carriage. I thought she looked rather like Nanny
now she is Mrs Cliffie.  There was a man with a brown moustache and a
bowler on in the corner opposite who kept on looking at me from behind
his paper and I thought he looked like a schoolmaster so I made up my
mind to keep quiet. After the train started, the old lady took some
sandwiches out of a basket and offered me one but I didn't want any.
When she'd finished them she took out a little round box of chocolate
creams and I had two but they were very small ones. She began asking me
questions about how old I was and where I lived and whether I was at
school. I said I lived in London but my parents were in Germany and I
had got an exeat but I'd lost my luggage. I had to explain what an exeat
was and I let it slip out that I was at Clive and I distinctly saw the
man in the corner put down his paper and stare at me. After that the old
lady got out some illustrated papers and lent me one and at Winchester
the man got out, so he certainly was a master. After that I began
talking again. I didn't mean to, but the old lady was so nice that
little by little I told her the whole thing and I asked her what she
thought I had better do. She said she must think it over and talk to Mr
Dixon about it when she got down to Ryde but anyhow I was to stay with
her.

It was ripping crossing over on the steamer and when we got there, Mr
Dixon was waiting. He was hardly as tall as she was with a wideawake hat
and a short grey beard and spectacles. They took me with them to where
they lived. It was called Gainsborough Terrace and we had dinner in a
small room with a lot of pictures of birds on the wall and two little
green parrots in a big cage in the window. After dinner he opened it and
they walked about on the table and ate bits of some kind of nut out of
his fingers. After that he made me sit down beside him at a desk and
asked me where my parents lived. I begged him not to write to them but,
if he must write to anyone, to write to Uncle Fred and gave him his
address. He said that would be all right and told me I could go for a
row if I liked. That was awfully decent of him because it was just what
I wanted to do. It was a lovely day, the water was as smooth as glass
and I'd seen a lot of ripping boats as we came in on the steamer. He
came with me and I got rather impatient because he walked so slow, he
had such short legs. But he'd been so nice to me I didn't show it and
even when he wouldn't let me go alone, I didn't argue about it.  The
boatman was a good sort and we had a jolly good row finishing up at the
pier. After tea with jam-puffs in the pagoda Mr and Mrs Dixon took me to
a performance by the Orinoco Nightingale and her Troupe of Dusky
Maidens. It was lovely but we had hardly got outside when who should I
see but Uncle Fred coming straight towards us.

The only disagreeable word Uncle Fred said to me on the steamer was
"Don't tell me any more cock-and-bull stories" and he only said that
after I began telling him that I'd taken the train from Spitall to
London by mistake instead of to Olive College station and that when the
dog-cart came along, all I intended to do was to go for a drive. We
didn't talk much going up in the train because I didn't know what to say
and when I asked him if the pater was in an awful wax with me, he said
he was afraid he was and I must face the consequences of my escapade
like a man. I was feeling utterly wretched and yet somehow I wasn't half
sorry to be sitting opposite dear old Uncle Fred and watching the smoke
come out of his nose and smelling the delicious smell of it that
reminded me of Craythorne on Sundays. He couldn't have been very down
on me because when he woke up from a nap, the moment he opened his eyes
he winked and said "Well done, Rindelgrover" and then went off to sleep
again.

When we got to Waterloo, the pater was at the station and that was
awful. He never even looked at me. Uncle Fred and he talked a minute and
when Uncle Fred gave me a kiss and said "Good-bye, be a man" the pater
pushed him away and said something in Italian. All the same Uncle Fred
turned round and held up his hand to me in that jolly way of his, behind
the pater's back. I came near crying when he went away but I managed to
keep it down so that the pater shouldn't think I cared. He'd got the
tickets for Olive but the train didn't go to the college station, only
to Wrecclesham. He never spoke a word all the way down but every now and
then, when he thought I wasn't looking, he rolled his eyes at me. The
pater's got an awful way of rolling his eyes round and round, I can't
think how he does it. He smoked a lot. What a ripping thing it must be
to smoke when you're upset about something. If I could smoke, I don't
think I should mind anything scarcely. All the time Uncle Fred and I had
been travelling, I was thinking I should see darling mother and Ada and
Baby and Keeling and even if the pater was beastly to me, they would
have made up for it. I hadn't thought he'd have taken me straight down
like this. What was going to happen to me next? I'd always been told
that when chaps bunked, they were expelled. I didn't know what happened
when chaps were expelled but I read an awfully rotten book by a
clergyman and the boy in it was expelled in front of the whole school
for doing something he hadn't done and came back and was top of the
school and captain of the rifle team. I don't know if there ever was a
rifle team at Olive, I never knew anyone who belonged to it and I
shouldn't think shooting at targets all day was much fun. Perhaps I
should be swished. That was the St. Vincent's name, they call it
something else at Olive.

But they don't do that publicly, only before four prefects. It can't be
awfully bad except for the disgrace and I'm so disgraced now it can't be
any worse. Cox said he hardly felt it but then Cox is a liar, he was in
the most awful funk before he went in, and his beastly face looked like
green cheese. I hope I shan't be like him. He got it for saying that
Beale was a dirty little usher on two quid a week and his washing. It
wasn't till then I knew what usher meant. "The usher took six hasty
strides, six hasty strides the usher took" I can't remember it properly
now.

When we got to Wrecclesham, the pater took a fly and we drove straight
to the hotel where mother and Captain Forrest and I had lunch on speech
day. It was quite late but he sat down and wrote a long letter and sent
it away by a boy on a pony. He never asked me if I was hungry and when I
said I was thirsty, he pointed to a jug of water and a glass on the
sideboard. I asked him if I could go to sleep on the sofa and he said I
might but I'd hardly laid down when the boy came back with an answer. Of
course it was from Mr Thornhill. The pater sent the boy away and read it
out loud very slowly, something about his not thinking he could persuade
Mr Wyke to keep his son at Clive because of the rule of the college that
boys who ran away had to be removed. The pater folded the letter up
without saying anything and put it away in his green pocket-book with
the gold initials on it that Uncle Fred gave him last birthday. Then he
rang the bell and said to the maid "Take this young gentleman to a
bedroom." She went to the pater and got some things he'd brought for me
in his bag. It was awfully nice of her because I didn't have to go and
ask him for them and I couldn't help kissing her. I knew she saw
something was the matter and was sorry for me and that made me cry--but
only for a minute.

The next morning directly after breakfast the pater took me to
Thornhill's. I was dreading the boys seeing me but they were all at
their forms except little Bird. He was looking out of the library window
so I supposed he'd got hay fever again. Mr Thornhill was much nicer than
the pater. He shook hands with me and told me to go into the
drawing-room while he talked to the pater in his study. After a bit Mrs
Thornhill came in and put her hand on my shoulder and asked me what I'd
run away for. I think I should have tried to tell her but Mr Thornhill
called me into the study and told me Mr Wyke had decided to let me stay
on. But the pater said "That's not quite all, Mr Thornhill. Mr Wyke
says, Richard, he will make the great exception of caning you instead
and he hopes you will show your gratitude for being treated so
leniently." Then he told Mr Thornhill how pleased he was about Mr Wyke
being so kind and asked Mr Thornhill if he might go up to my cubicle.
When we got there, he took darling mamma's picture off the bracket in
the middle of the partition over my bed and said "When you prove that
you deserve such a mother, you shall have it back." It was a lovely
hand-painted photograph she had given me in a black ebony carved frame,
in a ball dress, standing up. Pater knew how I loved that picture. I
asked him to take the big photo of the phaeton and pair of cobs with
mother sitting with the reins in her hand and Frank standing at their
head instead but he wouldn't do that. Then I said there was one thing he
could do anyhow and when he asked what that was I said "Go away and
never let me see your face again." He said "You'll be sorry you said
that some day." But I haven't been sorry yet.




XIV


It was all quite different to what I expected. Except Spencer not a
single boy ever spoke about my having bunked and I don't think they
knew. Instead of being in Coventry it was just the opposite. I don't
know whether it was all an idea of mine before or whether it was
different through Spencer being so jolly to me, he's awfully popular. It
was funny his being in his cubicle when the pater took mother's photo
away and hearing the whole thing and then asking me to come and look at
his photos so that he could tell me he'd heard and was sorry--awfully
decent I call it. Spencer's supposed to be very clever. He's got a
tremendous wig of curly light hair and he's in Upper Second on the
modern side and he's only a year older than me. His father is Sir Alfred
Spencer, the Queen's surgeon and he's her godson. And I must have been
wrong about Pearson too because he asked me to help him clean out his
cubicle and gave me a lot of plants I didn't know what to do with. But
what changed everything was Littlejohn's taking our form because of
Penley being ill. Just because I knew by heart "_Otium divos rogat in
patenti prensus Aegoeo nauta,"_ and that was only through Swanston
betting me a pound of grapes I couldn't do it in four times reading
over, Little John asked me to come and field for him at the nets. Then
he tells me to send him down a few balls and I take his leg stump and
the next thing I'm in the House Eleven. That only shows what luck is. I
only wish the pater had something more like Littlejohn in him but he
hasn't and never will have. Now that I'm certain of my remove, that
would have meant Lower Fifth next term and I should probably get into
the Second Eleven, he's going to take me away but he never thought of
that when I was down. Of course he puts it on my being ill and having to
go to the sanatorium again but why didn't he say anything the first
time? I don't care, I've got mother and she makes up for everything and
thank goodness he's away in the city all day. Of course it was mother
who engaged Arthur Stavely, the pater would never have got such a
ripping chap. He rows in his college boat and very nearly got into the
varsity Eight. If I've got to have a tutor, I must say I couldn't have a
jollier one. The only thing I don't like about him is his hanging about
mother so much. I don't like their walking about together in the evening
under the cedars.

Longshades is the most beautiful place in the world. The house is very
old, hundreds of years and very ramshackly, all dark brown shiny wood
inside with little staircases and passages all over the place and the
floor higher in some places than others and so slippery I'm always
coming croppers on it. In the pantry there's an enormous marble basin
with a dolphin's head over it with a tap in his mouth. Keeling says it
used to be a monastery and that the pantry is part of the refectory but
he doesn't know what a refectory is; I must ask Stavely. Keeling says
it's haunted and he's seen an old monk walking about when he locked up
the silver in that huge cupboard in the pantry wall and that Florrie's
afraid to go upstairs by herself because of the stairs creaking behind
her. He says that's the old monk following her up to her bedroom and
that those old monks were the very devil after girls like Florrie. The
garden goes right down to the water but you can't see the house from the
river because of the trees. There's an old mill on a sort of island and
the weir is quite close to the boathouse which makes it very dangerous
getting boats in and out. I've nearly been over twice, it's rather
exciting. The gardens stretch ever so far the other side of the house
with big lawns and cedar-trees where mother has the tea brought in the
afternoon and beyond the rose garden is the kitchen garden with lovely
apricots and peaches on the walls and then the park which goes as far as
Haversham with hills covered with woods, full of pheasants and rabbits
on one side, and the river on the other and smooth grass in between
where I gallop in the morning and before I go home I have to go to the
farm-house at the edge of Bindle Wood and have a large glass of milk
warm from the cow. I don't care about it but the doctor said I was to
have it and I do like the farm and Mrs Braiding and the lovely cool
dairy and the smell and the Jersey bull calf and Bill Braiding the
keeper.

There's a Roman Catholic chapel you can get into by a door on the broad
landing outside my bedroom. Then you're in a little gallery with chairs
in it and a little staircase that goes down below where it's half dark
because the windows are very small with coloured glass in them and
almost hidden by monuments of old knights and people. But there's always
a lamp burning over the altar only it has a very small wick. An old
Belgian priest comes for the service. He's a tutor too and he's got some
fellows staying with him, French and Belgian, at a funny little house in
the village. They seem to spend their time shooting at a target with
pistols. I saw one of them kissing Mrs Selliger's French maid Marie when
I was out with Bill Braiding feeding the pheasants. Bill said he was one
of those damned papists and he'd like to hit him behind the ear. That
evening the chap came to dinner with the priest and sang French songs
afterwards. His name is Camille de Jongh. When I went up to bed he was
still singing and Marie was hanging over the banisters listening so I
put my arm round her back and hung over with her until the door opened
downstairs and we both flew. I like Marie. She's very dark and has got
lovely flashing eyes and she wears pretty dresses that rustle and show
her petticoats. Mrs Cliffie hates her and says why can't she talk
English like a Christian as if she can help being French. In the middle
of the night something woke me up and I jumped out of bed. I always
sleep with my door open and I looked through and distinctly saw someone
come through the door from the chapel gallery and go into Marie's room.
The next morning I saw Marie taking Mrs Selliger's breakfast in and I
waited. When she came out I told her I'd seen de Jongh go into her room.
It wasn't true because it was too dark for me to know who it was but I'm
certain it was him because he could get hold of the key of the chapel.
All she did was to put her finger on her lips and move her eyes about
and whisper in my ear "You come into my room to-night."

A few days after that it was a Sunday and we were all sitting out on the
lawn having tea. Mr Benda had come down and Uncle Fred and Captain
Forrest and Gerald and Nelly Adeane who is Mrs Selliger's daughter had
rowed over from Henley. We'd been playing tennis and I was awfully hot
and it was lovely lying there on the grass near mother. She looked so
lovely and Uncle Fred and Mr Benda were pretending to quarrel over which
of them Mrs Selliger was to dine with when she went back to town next
day. Then I saw the pater coming out of the house. I thought he had his
eye on me and the next thing I knew was I had to go with him to call on
the Belgian priest. I looked at mother and Stavely but I saw I had to
go, though I couldn't imagine what for. On the way there he said he was
going to ask the priest to give me French lessons, I was doing next to
nothing with Mr Stavely and it was time I learnt French. When we got
there they were all sitting round in a circle and the priest introduced
the fellows to the pater and I had to shake hands all round. There were
four of them and they'd all got on tail-coats. One of them called Mérode
talked English to me, he wasn't a had sort of chap and he took me
outside and let me have some shots with his pistol. He said he liked
hunting but he meant shooting because he said he'd got an English gun.
Afterwards the others came out and we went away. On the way back pater
told me he'd arranged for me to have an hour and a half's lesson every
morning but of course I should have to prepare every afternoon as well,
so that would be at least three hours and as I did two hours with Mr
Stavely, that would make five which was enough during holidays. After
he'd taken so much trouble adding it all up I didn't spoil it by telling
him how much work Stavely and I did in that two hours. Then he said what
a nice young fellow de Jongh was, so clever and so industrious, the
priest said he was the best of his pupils, he could translate Greek into
French poetry and he sometimes worked half the night preparing for his
examination to be a doctor or something. Why couldn't I take a young man
like that for an example instead of thinking of nothing but games and
amusements. He hoped now I had the chance I would cultivate this nice
young man who had promised him to do anything he could to advance my
education. I didn't say anything, just listened to his usual pie-jaw.
But that evening after dinner I got hold of Uncle Fred and got him to
come out in the garden and told him what pater had said and that these
were my holidays and I thought it was a beastly chisel to make me swat
French with that old Belgian. Uncle Fred said I must be sensible it was
all for my good and papa had told him what nice young men Monsieur
Larue's pupils were, especially one of them. So then I couldn't keep it
in any longer and I told him about de Jongh going into Marie's room. Of
course I didn't know for certain, even then, but Uncle Fred looked at
me, then he doubled up his lips and said "Um" and we went inside and
there was de Jongh singing his songs again and everybody clapping their
hands. When I went up to bed, he was hard at it still but Marie wasn't
on the stairs and I didn't go into her room and in the morning before he
went to the city, pater told me he'd changed his mind about the French
lessons because my mother said the doctor wanted me to be in the open
air as much as possible.




XV


I don't know why they specially hit on Bournemouth or how they found
Pellew. I never can make out why, as it's me who has to go to a tutor,
the pater can't ask me what I think about it. He wouldn't have to do
what I said but if he only knew it, I should be much more likely to work
if he were to go by me and send me to the sort of tutor I like. Pellew
is a beast. I knew he was the first moment I saw him by the way he
grinned at me. When a master grins in that way, you know he's the sort
that loses his temper at the slightest thing and that's just what Pellew
does. Mr Beasley never grinned nor did Mr Atwood nor did Mr Thornhill
but Parnell did though not in the same way as Pellew, more brutal and
less sickly. Of course he's a clergyman, one of that kind that wear long
coats down below the knees and a low-crowned soft hat with a rosette in
the middle and he's got awful asthma and never stops wheezing and his
voice sounds as though he ought to be clearing his throat. When he's in
a good temper he's always putting his arm across your shoulders and
messing you about to show you how much he likes you but it only makes
you feel uncomfortable and hate him more. When he gets into one of his
rages, he glares at you and makes faces as though he was going mad.
There are only six of us and we're of all ages. Taverner's the oldest,
he's nearly seventeen, then comes O'Hara who's sixteen, then Grantley
and Barrett, they're fifteen and I soon shall be, then comes Medway. I
like Grantley the best. He's mad on engineering and he's good at
mathematics especially algebra but he hardly knows any Latin and no
Greek. He stammers when Pellew frightens him and he's awfully shy. He's
got a very pale face and a chin that goes back and he looks awful on a
horse. That's the best thing about this place, we ride three times a
week. That's all we seem to do except tennis but Grantley and I have
hired tricycles. He's got a dodge of using his like a locomotive,
standing on the iron frame that the small wheel in front goes through
and driving it backwards. Taverner's got a curious sort of machine. You
balance on a little seat between two wheels, one on your right side and
one on your left. Grantley knows an awful lot about machines and he says
it's a rotton invention and never will be any good because it's on the
wrong principle and he made a lot of drawings to explain why but I
couldn't understand them. O'Hara's got a horse of his own, a chestnut
with a long tail and a brand-new saddle and double bridle. He rides
awfully well and wears swagger breeches and top-boots with cloth tops.
He hardly does any work and seems to do what he likes. He's an American
and speaks with a queer accent. He's got red curly hair and a red face
and I rather like him. He told me he'd got sacked from Harrow but he
didn't care and when he'd had enough of Pellew's, he'd get sacked again.
He says that's the only game when you're weary but it's all very well
for him. His pater lives in California and he says his mother runs the
show in Europe and she only laughs when he gets sacked. Medway's only
just thirteen and very small but he's jolly clever and he draws awfully
well. He's got the funniest tricks I've ever seen. When he's drawn
something, he does horses and people riding chiefly, he pushes the paper
forward on the desk and sits back and looks at it, giving it little
pokes first to one side, then to the other and while he's doing that, he
rattles his pencil between his teeth and jumps about on his chair and
hums out of tune. He works himself up into a regular state doing that
and doesn't pay any attention to anybody.  Barrett and I made him go on
doing it one day till he fell on the floor and writhed about so much
that we got in a funk. Perhaps he caught something when he was in India.
He lived there till he was eight and came home with an ayah. What with
rides in the New Forest and the private theatricals I wouldn't half mind
it here if it weren't for Greek with Pellew. Only Barrett and I do
Greek. The Odyssey one day, Alcestis the other and Greek Testament on
Saturdays. As long as Beddoes takes us, it's all right. He's very tall,
six foot at least. He dresses very well and wears striped coloured
shirts with a very high all-round collar and tight trousers with stripes
and a single eyeglass and is clean-shaved because he's an amateur actor
and sings comic songs. He'a an awfully good sort and Barrett and I swat
rather for him because he once told us that if we didn't get on, he'd
have to go. That was after Pellew got into one of his waxes and pitched
into him in front of the whole class because Grantley made a fool of
himself in his Latin prose. Pellew only takes Taverner regularly every
day, but he sees our papers and hears us now and then. I don't think
Beddoes knows Greek very well, he's always turning words up in the
lexicon, but that beast Pellew does, he's mad on Homer. He reads lines
out in a sing-song voice and then gets up and walks about the room
waving his arms and saying it off by heart. That would be all right
enough but on Saturdays Barrett and I have to take Greek Testament in
his study. The first time he was sitting at his writing-table and when I
came in he grinned at me in that awful way and stroked his chin just
under his mouth with one hand and held up his other for me to come and
stand by him. He began by asking me how my cold was or something and
stroked the back of my head and grinned more than ever.  Then he said,
"Well, let's begin" and while I read the Greek and started translating
he went on stroking my neck and my back. I moved as far away as I could
and after a time he said that would do, I'd done it very nicely and I
was to send in Barrett. As soon as Barrett came out, I asked him what
Pellew did. He said he'd made him sit down on the sofa beside him and
twisted his hair and tickled his face all the time he was reading and
translating. I had half a mind to tell Taverner but when it came to it,
I felt shy because I didn't know what to say. Besides, what could
Taverner do? Then the rehearsals began and Pellew got so excited about
them, he didn't go on taking us in Greek till they were over. And soon
after that I got ill and had to go to bed and mother and Dr Burroughs
came down and then came the holidays and I went to stay with Grantley.




XVI


It was through Lady Adelaide coming to Bournemouth and asking me to
lunch that I went to stay at Bentley Court. Percy would have been too
shy to ask me but his mother wrote to mine.

I wasn't exactly pleased to go really but afterwards I was glad I did.
For one thing, at St. Vincent's some of the chaps like Ellerby and Hames
were always talking about their fathers' country houses and the shooting
and the keepers and the hounds and all that and I'd never seen anything
of that kind except Bill Braiding and the pheasants and rabbits in the
woods above Longshades. I wanted to see what Percy Grantley's father was
like to compare him with pater and see how he treated him. But I hated
leaving mother during the short Christmas holidays, it was worth putting
up with the pater to be with her.

Lady Adelaide came to meet me at Hurstonbury station in a victoria and
pair. Percy drove the village cart he'd told me about and took my
portmanteau. Of course I'd much rather have gone with him.  Mother would
never have put on such a shabby old brown cloth dress and awful boots
with round leather things round the tops as Lady Adelaide wore and as to
the carriage, it was all knocked about and the varnish was cracked and
the pair were awful, not a match at all, one was a bay and the other
brown, their tails were different lengths and they stood over at the
knees. Percy said afterwards they were old hunters; they certainly
didn't look like carriage horses. We drove past a beautiful old ruin
covered with ivy. Lady Adelaide said it was Hurstonbury Abbey and close
to it were the gates of Bentley Park and a lodge. We stopped there and
Lady Adelaide took a parcel in and stayed some time. When she came out
again, she said that one of the keepers lived in that lodge and his wife
had just had a baby, the fourth and that it was a beautiful little boy.
She asked me if I had sisters and brothers and, when I told her, she
said, is that all, and that she had nine. After a time we could see the
house in the distance and when we got nearer we came up with an old
gentleman on a very fat cob. I could hardly believe he was Percy's
father, he looked so old. There was tea going in an enormous
drawing-room and a lot of people. One lady, who looked rather like Miss
Durham and about the same age, took me over to the table and asked me
whether I'd like coffee or tea, a poached or a boiled egg. She was
awfully nice and after a time I knew she was Percy's oldest sister.
Afterwards Percy took me up to my room next to his which was miles off
down a long passage and up some stone stairs. Everything was stone and
it was very cold. He told me there was a shooting party and those men in
the drawing-room were the guns. They were going to shoot the outlying
covers the next day and we should go with the beaters. What I specially
noticed was that everybody seemed to do what they liked and nobody
bothered much about anybody else. Everybody called old Mr Seton-Grantley
the Squire. He didn't change his clothes for dinner but just had his
top-boots pulled off and the buttons of his breeches undone by the
butler and he went to sleep at the end and didn't notice when Percy's
sisters squirted orange pips at him. The youngest one is awfully pretty
and is engaged to Captain Leadbeater who Percy says is one of the best
shots in England. He and Lord Densham who married another sister go on
like schoolboys, making everybody apple-pie beds and putting wet sponges
on the doors. I wonder what pater would think of it.

I didn't enjoy the shooting as much as I expected because of having to
kill the animals. Percy showed me how to but I made an awful mess of it
and I could hardly stand it, especially the hares. I liked the meet in
front of the house best and running all day and viewing the fox away
with that keeper, Jim Watt. It's odd Percy would rather fool about on
that rotten little toy railway than hunt. I wish they'd have let me have
a horse. Hunting's what I intend to go in for when I get a chance.

Lady Adelaide doesn't seem to bother about Percy at all. I never see as
much of mother as I want to, still I do see her and she always knows
what I'm doing. Lady Adelaide seems to think more about the people in
Bentley village and on the estate than she does of Percy. And Percy
doesn't seem to have more to do with his oldest brother than a boy in
the Lower School does with a fellow in the Sixth. As to his father, you
wouldn't think Percy was his son at all. I really think I'd rather have
the pater than be the son of some old chap who hardly knows or cares
whether I'm alive or not.




XVII


The next term at Pellew's was awful. He took it into his head that
Barrett and I ought to be confirmed. That meant going into his study and
having to put up with his rotten talk and pretending to understand
things that seemed to be absolute gibberish and yet feeling all the time
one ought to be what one wasn't. Even that wouldn't have been so bad if
it hadn't been for his disgusting antics.  Over and over again I said to
myself I'd write the whole thing to mother but it was so fearfully
difficult to explain and I was certain the pater would simply say I was
inventing it. You see, there was nothing you could exactly get hold of,
it was the sort of way he behaved. Supposing it had been Littlejohn, for
instance, he might have done almost exactly the same and it would have
been all right because one knew that he was straight and even if one
couldn't believe all the things he would have wanted one to, one would
have tried. And perhaps, very likely even, one would have told him what
one felt. He was the sort of man you could say things to. But Pellew was
exactly the opposite. I knew he was a canting hypocrite like Pecksniff.
I don't think Barrett saw it like I did and that was another reason why
I didn't write. If another boy didn't think what I did, how could I
expect the pater to believe what I said? I noticed after a bit that when
I talked to him about Pellew he didn't say much and gradually I gave up
saying anything. I think Pellew had managed to humbug him; I don't think
it was Barrett's fault. Sometimes he went up to his room, we all had
separate ones there, and stayed there for an hour nearly. I believe he
was reading that little book of prayers Pellew gave us. Pellew told me I
ought to spend a lot of time praying but I never did. I just said my
usual prayers that Miss Carroll taught me and my own that I made up. I
never was in the least frightened by what he said might happen to my
soul. The only thing I was afraid of was, what might happen to mother or
Ada or Baby or Uncle Fred or old Mrs Cliffie or Mr Benda or someone else
I was fond of.

Well, we were confirmed and there was an end of it. But it was an awful
term.




XVIII


After my confirmation Pellew gradually gave up his tricks. I got rather
good at tennis in the summer term and won our handicap tournament but
there wasn't much in that as I got a bisque every game from Taverner. He
took my beating him awfully well. But that made me useful to Pellew
making up sets with Mrs Pellew and her friends. Then came the summer
holidays at Rottingdean and riding on the downs with mother and teaching
Ada to ride and Mrs Furzell and the Carstairs coming to stay and Uncle
Fred and Mr Benda and Giorgio di Minerbi. After that the winter term.
Taverner and O'Hara left and Mortimer and Wynn came and thanks to mother
I was allowed to hunt twice a month on the condition made by the
governor that I worked for the intermediate. My passing it with special
mention for Latin verse and prose made him more decent last holidays
than he'd ever been before. That's not saying much but still . . . And
now through no fault of mine, he'll be more down on me than ever. If
anyone's to blame it's Uncle Fred but I shall certainly never say so.

The whole business happened because of Pellew being mad about Raikes.
Raikes came this term, he's about seventeen and an invalid, lungs all
wrong, but he doesn't look ill. He's got a milky white skin but plenty
of colour in his cheeks and eyes like mother's rather, only bluer still.
He's not good-looking like a boy really and his voice and ways are like
a girl, awfully gentle and affectionate. No one could be angry with him
or treat him unkindly, he wouldn't understand if you did. Besides he'd
never give you reason to. He spends most of his time lying on a sofa in
the Pellews' drawing-room, reading Plato and Theocritus and Pellew never
lets him out of his sight. He didn't come in to the classes with the
rest of us and I'm the only one who has seen anything much of him. Why I
don't know but Pellew picked me out to be with him sometimes when he
couldn't be. That wasn't often. On fine afternoons, he and Raikes lay on
the sands, I suppose they were playing at being Greeks. I believe Pellew
thinks himself like Plato. Raikes began calling me Richard at once and
asked me to call him Douglas. You knew at once he'd never been to a
Public School by the way he talked and the words he used. I couldn't
possibly have helped liking him but I never felt comfortable with him. I
liked to hear him talk, and being with him in some ways better than I
ever liked being with any boy. When we were together he always seemed to
find something amusing to talk about but utterly unlike other boys. I
believe if this hadn't happened and I'd gone on seeing him, I should
have got as keen on Greek as he is though I should never have got to
know it like him. All the same, after I'd been with him for a time, I
was always rather glad when Pellew--Raikes called him Magister to his
face--came in and I went back to the others. I felt as though it wasn't
myself who was there with him but somebody else and each time the
feeling was stronger. I didn't want to like him much but I couldn't help
it and it seemed as though if I liked him I must dislike all the others
and everything I generally thought and did.

Well, a few days ago, Uncle Fred wrote me he was coming down to
Bournemouth for a night and I was to ask Mr Pellew to let me be with him
while he was there. Pellew said I could but I must be back by ten
o'clock in the evening which I thought quite decent. I went to the
station to meet him and I was awfully surprised when I saw he'd got Mrs
Brandeis and her brother Giorgio di Minerbi with him. We all drove to
the hotel where Uncle Fred seemed to have taken the whole floor. He was
awfully jolly, joking and chaffing with Giorgio as he always does. In
the afternoon we all went for a walk along the cliffs but Uncle Fred had
a carriage to follow us in case Mrs Brandeis got tired. When we got to
Branksome Chine we all went down to the sands and there lying in the sun
in a sheltered spot was Douglas Raikes and near by was his bath-chair
with a boy and a pony in it waiting for him. For a wonder Pellew wasn't
with him. Of course I introduced him to Uncle Fred. It's a funny thing
but at the very moment Uncle Fred introduced him to Giorgio, I had a
feeling that something disagreeable would happen. They all began talking
together, Giorgio mostly in Italian as he speaks English very badly and
of course he and his sister always talk Italian to Uncle Fred. But
Raikes seemed to understand and I could see they all liked him,
especially Giorgio. The next thing was that Uncle Fred invited him to
drive back to tea at the hotel with him and Raikes was delighted and got
into his bath-chair at once to go up to where the carriage was. After
tea I thought he'd go but he and Giorgio were talking in a corner and I
didn't like to say anything to Uncle Fred although I knew Pellew would
be in a rage about his not going back. Anyhow, he stayed all the rest of
the afternoon and to dinner besides and drove back with me to Pellew's.
We got in just before ten and Pellew was waiting in the hall. I knew
what was coming by the way he told Raikes to go upstairs. He followed me
in and shut the door and stood and looked at me a moment as though he
was considering how he was going to kill me. Then he began. It's more
easy to think of what names he didn't call me and Uncle Fred than what
he did call us. He raged up and down and hammered on the table and threw
his arms about until I thought he'd fall down in a fit. At the end he
said I was to leave immediately. I could go back to my degraded
voluptuary of an uncle and stay with him, he wasn't going to have his
house and his pupils polluted by such people. After that he calmed down
a little and told me to go to bed. That was the day before yesterday and
yesterday morning I was expecting to have to pack my things and go round
to Uncle Fred's hotel. After breakfast Pellew called me into his study
again and told me he wouldn't disgrace me by sending me away on the spot
but he was going to write to my father to remove me at the end of the
term. He would spare me by confining himself to saying that he
considered it would be in my interests to pursue my studies elsewhere.
I was clearly to understand that I was not to speak another word to
Raikes while I was there but he never mentioned Uncle Fred again. I
suppose Eaikes told him what a dear old chap he is. But he means to get
rid of me. I know, whatever way he puts it, that the governor is quite
certain to side with him against me. And if I tried to explain, what
could I say? What I believe is that Pellew is mad.




XIX


Uncle Caesar came to Craythorne once when I was a small kid. I think it
was the same year old Uncle Leopold was there. I remember his coming to
the observatory where I had lessons to hear me say "Under the spreading
chestnut tree, the village smithy stands" by heart to Miss Carroll and
his making me sit under the elms while he read me his German poem about
Craythorne garden and Aunt Justina interrupting to explain and his
telling her to be quiet, that I could understand it if I tried. Later
when he came to Heidelberg Kölle made me read the _Allgemeine Rundschau_
Uncle Caesar was editor of and I was jolly pleased when he told the
governor that _Der Taucher_ wasn't a good poem, not a bit the sort he
ought to have made me learn. I don't think I saw him after that till now
but Wilhelmina was staying with the aunts while I was with them at
Hamburg last Easter holidays and it was through her fidgeting about that
I caught a crab in that half-outrigger and fell into the Alster. How she
carried on about it! She still says _"Aber Richhart"_ whenever I chaff
her and call her my little _Schatz._ I expected to find it a tiresome
business travelling about with my German relations but I've got to like
Uncle Caesar and little Aunt Justina and I shall be sorry to leave them
when the governor meets us at Stresa. After that I'm to go to
Switzerland with him to the new tutor's he's found at Vevey. Uncle
Caesar's a rare good sort, not a bit of a humbug, and I've learnt more
German being with him a couple of weeks than I did from that fool Kölle
in six.  He meets people he knows everywhere and likes a bottle of wine
and what is more likes me to like it. He says "_Guter Wein, guter
Schnapps, gute Zigarre, laute gute Sachen aber--keine Frauenzimmer
dabei."_ He's very thin, clean-shaved all but a little moustache, and
he's got a long nose and long hair brushed straight back from his
forehead and falling down his neck and he always wears boots that pull
on and go half-way up to the knee under his trousers and a little black
tie like you wear in the evening, a soft black hat with a wide brim and
a cloak. You wouldn't think to look at him he'd say Bo! to a goose, but
you'd make a big mistake. He may be a poet but he's as brave as a lion
and he won't stand cheek from anyone.

We arrived at Verona late one evening and we all four left our things at
the hotel and went to a café opposite the Amphitheatre to have supper.
There was moonlight and we sat outside. After we'd finished Uncle Caesar
went on smoking his cigar and drinking his wine, out of what he called a
fiasco, and looking at the Amphitheatre; I expect he was thinking of
writing a poem about it. Anyhow, he wasn't bothering about us and once
when Wilhelmina was going to interrupt him, Aunt Justina shut her up and
said "Can't you leave your father alone?" Wilhelmina fidgeted about and
stuck her head first on one side, then on the other and pouted. I
thought she looked idiotic and couldn't help making a grimace at her.
When she turned her back on me with an offended air, little Aunt Justina
and I looked at each other and laughed. It was awfully amusing sitting
there watching the people. The café was crowded and more kept coming and
a lot were walking up and down; ladies, some of them lovely, with
diamond earrings flashing in their ears and shawls on and officers with
swords and top-boots and spurs and long blue cloaks, frightfully swagger
chaps. I didn't mind how long we sat there but Wilhelmina kept on
fidgeting. First she turned one way, then she turned another, then she
moved her chair and almost knocked a little boy, who was sitting next
her with his mother, off his and had to apologise. She was quiet for a
few minutes after that but she soon began again. I couldn't think what
on earth was the matter and I was just going to ask her when Uncle
Caesar called the waiter and paid the bill and got up. We were walking
towards the hotel down a narrow street with very high houses and hardly
any lamps. Wilhelmina was walking behind with me and kept on turning
round so I turned round too to see what she was looking at. I couldn't
see anything to get excited about but some distance behind us, I thought
I saw one of those officers in his blue cloak. I took hold of
Wilhelmina's arm and asked her in a whisper because I didn't want Uncle
Ceesar to hear, whether that was what she was going on like that about,
but she pulled away and rushed up to her father and seized his arm and
shrieked in German "There he is, he's following me. I'm frightened. I'm
frightened." Uncle Caesar turned round and, though I don't think he saw
anything although he wears eyeglasses because he's so shortsighted, he
rushed down the street, brandishing his stick with Wilhelmina clinging
on to the same arm and Aunt Justina hanging on to the other. I scuttled
on past them as hard as I could although I didn't know in the least what
I'd do especially if the chap pulled out his sword. Luckily, though I
went to the end of the street I couldn't see a sign of him and turned
back but Uncle Caesar went on towards the cafe still brandishing his
stick and those two still clinging to his arms. What exactly happened
when he got there I don't know because he made me stay with Aunt Justina
and Wilhelmina while he went on. But I saw him talking and shaking his
stick at several officers who were sitting at a table and it was quite a
time before he came back with one of them. He was an enormous chap with
a glass in his